ASKET 


OF 


REMINISCENCES, 


BY 


HENRY   S.    FOOTE. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C.: 

CHRONICLE     PUBLISHING     COMPANY. 
1874. 


PREFACE. 

The  author  of  the  Reminiscences  contained  in  this  volume  has  lit- 
tlff  to  say  in  regard  to  them  by  way  of  proem.  They  were  written  to 
amuse  a  few  hours  of  the  summer  and  autumn  of  the  present  year,  and 
appeared  almost  daily  in  the  columns  of  the  WASHINGTON  CHRON 
ICLE  precisely  as  they  were  originally  thrown  off  from  his  pen. 
Though  very  sensible  of  their  deficiencies  in  point  of  literary  finish, 
he  has  not  judged  it  expedient  to  modify  them  in  any  essential  par 
ticular  ;  and  he  will,  indeed,  be  highly  gratified  if  they  shall  now 
be  read  by  those  into  whose  hands  they  may  chance  to  fall  with  an 
much  interest  as  they  seemed  originally  to  awaken. 

He  has  no  apology  to  make  for  certain  rather  unkind  strictures  in 
dulged  in  regard  to  several  individuals  upon  whose  character  and  con 
duct  he  has  undertaken  to  remark.  He  has  chosen  to  speak  the  unvar 
lushed  truth,  both  as  to  men  and  things;  and  he  is  quite  well  satisfied 
that,  sooner  or  later,  all  considerate  and  impartial  men  will  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  in  doing  so  he  is  not  justly  subject  to  censure.  Should 
there  be  those  who  shall  choose  to  join  issue  with  him  as  to  facts  herein 
narrated  they  will  now  have  it  in  their  power  to  do  so  under  circum 
stances  altogether  convenient  to  them. 


334575 


CASKET    OF    -REMINISCENCES, 


REMINISCENCE  No.  I. 

JAMES  MONROE — JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS — CHIEF  JUSTICE  MAR 
SHALL — HENRY  CLAY — ROBERT  J.  WALKER — MR.  WEBSTER- 
JENNY  LIND. 

Aii  opinion  has  long  prevailed  that  such  as  have  heen 
blessed  with  more  than  ordinary  multiplicity  of  years,  and 
whose  opportunities  of  observing  the  course  of  public 
affairs  have  been  at  all  favorable — so  long,  at  least,  as  the 
mem  sana  in  sano  corpore  shall  be  vouchsafed  to  them— 
may  be  reasonably  presumed  to  hold  in  the  storehouse  of 
memory  many  facts,  the  accurate  and  impartial  recital  of 
which  might  be  expected  to  prove  more  or  less  instructive 
and  entertaining  to  persons  of  a  more  limited  experience. 
It  is  doubtless  upon  some  such  notion  as  this,  whether 
well  or  ill  founded,  that  I  have  been  persuaded  to  enter 
a  Held  already  in  part  occupied  by  others,  whose  diverse 
merits  I  have  no  wish  to  call  in  question.  Not  purposing 
to  write  either  history  or  biography  in  a  regular  manner, 
I  shall  probably  not  be  subjected  to  anything  like  acri 
monious  criticism  if  I  shall  in  a  great  measure  disregard 
mere  order  of  time,  and  describe  such  scenes  as  may 
casually  suggest  themselves  to  my  recollection,  in  a  very 
desultory  manner,  and  with  something  of  the  unaffected 
simplicity  of  oral  narrative. 


2       :.  v  .  »•  J  >  •       ,€?&£  EX  OF ,  R*3M INISCENCES. 

It  chanced  that  I  was  in  the  city  of  Washington  during 
the  latter  part  of  the  winter  of  1824-'5,  having  been  at 
tracted  thither,  as  many  thousands  besides  had  been,  by 
the  interesting  scenes  of  one  kind  or  another  known  to  he 
there  enacting.  The  Electoral  Colleges  in  the  States  having 
failed  to  give  to  either  of  the  four  Presidential  candidates 
a  majority  of  votes,  upon  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
Congress  was  devolved  the  duty  of  selecting  a  President 
from  the  three  candidates  who  had  been  the  recipients 
of  the  largest  number  of  electoral  votes.  After  an  in 
tensely  interesting  struggle  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams  was 
chosen,  and  preparations  were  made  for  his  inauguration. 
This  took  place  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  and  I  had  the  honor  to  witness  this  ceremony,  which 
to  me  at  the  time  was  full  of  novelty  and  interest.  Mr. 
Adams  seemed  to  me  to  be  then  quite  a  robust  man,  and 
of  a  far  more  animated  and  hopeful  aspect  than  he  was  in 
after  years.  When  he  advanced  across  the  floor  of  the 
hall  and  received  the  volume  containing  the  oath  of  office 
from  the  hands  of  the  venerable  Chief  Justice  Marshall, 
his  step  was  firm,  and  his  manner  was  marked  with  a 
placid  dignity  very  imposing  indeed.  He  enunciated 
the  oath  in  a  clear  and  distinct  tone,  and  ascended  the 
Speaker's  chair  for  the  purpose  of  delivering  therefrom 
his  inaugural  address.  Then  it  was  that  he  seemed  to  mu 
to  evince  some  embarrassment,  and  the  paper  from  which 
he  read  rattled  in  his  tremulous  hands  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  noise  from  it  was  distinctly  heard  by  auditors  in 
the  gallery  of  the  House,  where  I  was  myself  located. 

When  the  address  was  brought  to  a  close,  most  of  those 
present  proceeded  to  the  White  House  in  order  to  take 
leave  of  Mr.  Monroe,  who  was  about  to  set  off  for  his  private 
residence  in  Virginia.  Curiosity  led  me  thither.  I  was 
much  struck  with  the  very  healthy  and  vigorous  appear- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  3 

ance  of  this  venerable  man.  Though  I  had  seen  him  often 
before,  I  had  never  approached  him  so  nearly  as  on  this 
occasion.  His  appearance  and  manners  were  full  of  life 
and  cordiality.  His  face  wore  a  kindly  and  genial  smile, 
and  he  was  evidently  rejoicing  inwardly  at  being  relieved 
at  last  from  the  toils  and  cares  of  office.  I  saw  Mr.  Adams 
also  in  the  throng  of  those  who  were  eagerly  pressing 
forward  to  shake  hands  with  his  predecessor.  He  seemed 
to  be  wholly  unnoticed,  and  to  be  in  a  gravely  meditative 
mood.  I  was  anxious  to  see  him  more  distinctly,  and  I. 
urged  my  way  to  his  whereabouts  perhaps  a  little  indeli 
cately.  When  I  beheld  him  nearly  I  found  that  he  was 
actually  weeping.  The  tear-drops,  which  were  constantly 
distilling  from  his  eyelids,  he  ever  and  anon  wiped  away 
with  a  white  linen  handkerchief.  The  spectacle  which  I 
beheld  reminded  me  very  forcibly  of  what  I  had  read  of 
the  laughing  and  the  weeping  philosopher  of  the  olden 
time.  Here  I  saw  a  President  of  the  United  States  de 
parting  from  office  to  all  appearance  replete  with  hilarity 
and  joyousness,  while  he  who  was  presently  to  fill  his  place 
seemed  smitten  with  unappeasable  anguish  and  melan 
choly.  I  did  not  then  know  what  I  soon  after  learned, 
that  the  tear-shedding  which  had  so  painfully  attracted 
my  attention  was  with  Mr.  Adams  but  an  "ordinary  in 
undation,"  and  the  result  of  an  optical  distemper  of  very 
long  standing. 

So  soon  as  the  leave-taking  was  over  at  the  White 
] louse,  a  very  numerous  body  of  citizens  flocked  to  Mr. 
Adams'  private  residence,  in  order  to  partake  of  a  sumpt 
uous  banquet  which  had  been  prepared  for  their  enjoy 
ment.  Now,  in  connection  with  this  same  banquet,  which 
I  did  not  attend,  there  has  been  buzzing  about  my  cranium 
ever  since  a  not  unpleasant  reminiscence.  When  the 
banqueters  returned  from  Mr.  Adams'  house,  several  of 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

them  mentioned  to  me,  in  very  kind  terms,  the  hospitable 
attentions  of  which  they  had  been  recipients,  and,  among 
other  things,  spoke  in  language  of  warm  commendation 
of  the  two  sons  of  Mr.  Adams,  who  had  superintended  the 
distribution  of  creature  comforts  to  the  numerous  guests 
assembled  around  the  table,  which  was  literally  groaning 
with  all  the  choicest  viands  which  the  Washington  market 
could  supply.  These  young  gentlemen  were  described  as 
each  of  them  holding  in  his  dexter  hand  a  bright  silver 
ladle,  with  which  be  lavishly  apportioned  to  the  eager 
visitants  the  most  delicious  oyster  soup,  dipped  out  of  a 
splendid  china  bowl  of  most  gigantic  proportions,  which 
sat  smoking  before  them.  The  elder  of  these  scions  of  a 
noble  stock  I  had  incidentally  met  at  the  Bedford  Springs, 
in  Pennsylvania,  the  summer  before.  I  regretted  to  see 
bis  untimely  decease  reported  in  tfee  newspapers  a  few 
years  later.  To  bis  younger  brother,  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  now  so  creditably  known  on  both  sides  of  the  At 
lantic,  I  haa  the  honor  of  being  casually  introduced  one 
night  at  the  theater  in  Washington?  I  saw  him  again, 
in  company  with  his  brother  John,  at  the  inaugural  ball, 
which  took  place  upon  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  March. 
Our  slight  personal  acquaintance  has  never  been  sub 
sequently  renewed,  nor  do  I  suppose  that  he  now  remem 
bers  that  we  ever  met.  I  have  been,  though,  for  many 
years,  a  diligent  observer  of  his  course,  and  while  I  have 
not  always  been  able  to  concur  with  him  upon  the  public 
questions  which  have  been  from  time  to  time  agitated, 
his  intellectual  powers  have  ever  commanded  my  respect, 
and  I  have  never  at  all  distrusted  either  his  integrity  or 
his  patriotism. 

It  is  well  known  to  all  the  readers  of  our  national  his 
tory  that  the  administration  of  M£  Adams  had  to  en 
counter  much  and  tierce  opposition  in  various  quarters. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  5 

He  and  all  the  prominent  members  of  his  Cabinet  were 
objects  of  unsparing  denunciation,  and  even  sometimes 
also  of  ridicule.  All  sorts  of  accusations  were  preferred 
against  himself  and  Mr.  Clay  in  particular, and  they  were 
freely  denounced  as  the  upholders  of  corruption  and  the 
enemies  of  freedom.  Nearly  a  half  century  has  now  passed 
away  since  that  Administration  was  brought  to  a  close. 
The  prejudices  and  passions  connected  with  the  period  in 
which  it  had  its  course  are  Almost  absolutely  extinct,  and 
now  "returning  Justice,  lifting  aloft  her  scale,"  attests  to 
all  the  generations  of  the  future  that  the  Republic  has 
never  known  a  time  in  which  public  men  of  greater  vir 
tue  and  wisdom  occupied  the  high  places  of  civil  trust,  or 
when  all  the  concerns  of  the  Government  were  more  suc 
cessfully  and  economically  administered,  than  between  the 
4th  of  March,  1825,  and  the  4th  of  March,  1829. 

Of  Mr.  Clay  I  shall  have  a  good  deal  to  say  hereafter. 
Mr  Adams  I  never  knew  intimately.  I.  sawhim  for  the 
last  time  at  his  own  house,  in  Washington,  on  the  1st  day 
of  Januaiy,  1848,  and  had  a  short  conversation  with  him. 
He  was  then  very  pale  and  thin,  and  I  left  him  with  the 
impression  that  he  could  not  long  survive.  When  he  fell 
suddenly  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  a  few  weeks 
later,  while  in  the  act  of  delivering  an  eloquent  and 
powerful  speech  upon  a  question  which  involved  his  feel 
ings  very  deeply,  there  was  probably  not  a  member  of  Con 
gress  of  any  party  who  did  not  feel  the  most  poignant  dis 
tress  and  chagrin. 

Mr.  Adams  was,  upon  the  whole,  one  of  the  most  re 
markable  men  that  our  country  has  produced.  Honest, 
warm-hearted,  and  fearless,  he  disdained  to  conceal  his 
opinions  upon  any  subject  involving  the  welfare  of  his 
country  or  the  happiness  of  his  kind.  His  mind  was  by 
nature  active,  vigorous,  and  capable  of  the  highest  cul- 


6  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ture.     His  early  education,  under  the  direction  of  his  ven 
erable  father,  had  heen  most  judicious  and  complete,  and 
he  had  devoted  almost  his  whole  life  to  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  of  every  kind,  both  theoretic  and  practical. 
He  was  a  ripe  scholar,  and  was  thoroughly  versed  in  every 
department  of  modern  literature.     His  pen,  as  a  political 
controversial  writer,  was  one  ot  the  most   potential  that 
the   country  has   known.      He  does    not    seern  to  have 
gained  much  reputation  as  a  speaker  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  his  public  career.     When  in  the  national  Senate,  before 
he   had   yet  attained  middle  age,  he   is  not  known  to 
have  distinguished  himself  as  a  debater  on  any  noted  oc 
casion.     But  on  his  becoming  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  several  years  subsequent  to  his  defeat  for 
re-election  to  the  Presidency,  he  discovered  powers  of  dis 
cussion  for  which  no  one  had  ever  before  that  period  given 
him  credit.     I  very  much  doubt  whether  a  more  accom 
plished  and  effective  speaker  wras  ever  heard  in  that  body. 
His  command  of  language  was  unlimited  ;  his  knowledge 
of  public  affairs  was  such  as  perhaps  no  other  American 
statesman  has  ever  possessed,  which  gave  him  a  great  ad 
vantage  over  those  with  whom  he  had  from  time  to  time 
to  conflict ;  his  memory  of  past  transactions  was  never  at 
fault ;  and   when  he  felt  himself  to  be  in  the  right,  he 
feared  not  the  weapons  of  any  adversary.     His  powers  of 
sarcasm  and  denunciation  were  positively  terrific,  and  no 
man  ever  dared  to  awaken  his  ire  whom  he  did  not  speed 
ily  compel  to  regret  his  temerity.     His  superiority  to  all 
the  flimsy  and  tinseled  declaimers  of  the  period,  who,  with 
a  vain  and  silly  ambition,  sought  to  draw  him  into  con 
flict,  was  so  conspicuous  that  even  those  who  disliked  him 
most  were  constrained  to  recognize  him  as  a  victor  in  eveiy 
such  conflict.     Mr.   Adams  seemed  to  belong  to  a  class 
of  persons  of  whom  only  a  few  have  made  their  appear- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  7 

ance  either  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  in  whom  imagi 
nation,  conjoined  with  retentive  memory  and  fervid  sen 
sibilities,  grew  more  and  more  vigorous  and  luxuriant  up 
even  to  the  end  of  their  mortal  career.  Thus  was  it  with 
the  venerahle  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  with  Plato,  with 
Sophocles,  and  with  Edmund  Burke.  On  the  day  of  Mr. 
Adams'  lamented  decease,  I  do  not  at  all  doubt  that  he 
was  the  most  splendid  and  picturesque  rhetorician  then 
living ;  and  he  is  known  to  have  often  indulged  in  poeti 
cal  effusions,  both  of  a  grave  and  sportive  character,  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  an  Ovid  or  a  Tibullus.  A  day 
or  so  before  his  death  he  wrote  a  beautiful  little  sonnet 
to  a  charming  young  lady  of  his  acquaintance,  which 
was  shown  to  me  by  Caleb  Lyon,  of  Lyondale — a  copy 
of  it  having  been  given  to  him  by  Mr.  Adams  himself— 
with  the  sweetness  and  beauty  of  which  I  was  much 
impressed. 

Robert  J.  Walker  told  me  more  than  once  that  Mr. 
Adams,  several  years  anterior  to  1844,  predicted  in  his 
hearing  and  in  a  manner  exceedingly  solemn  and  earnest, 
that  in  less  than  twenty  years  African  slavery  would  be 
extinguished  in  the  United  States — adding  that  he  ex 
pected  himself  to  witness  its  overthrow. 

A  few  days  subsequent  to  the  decease  of  Mr.  Adams, 
on  a  convivial  occasion,  when  all  present  were  lamenting 
that  event,  and  commending  his  social  and  domestic  vir 
tues,  as  well  as  his  extraordinary  ability,  I  recollect  Mr. 
Webster  to  have  said :  "Well,  gentlemen,  all  you  say  is 
doubtless  true;  Mr.  Adams  was  a  very  remarkable 
man  ;  no  one  can  doubt  his  talents  or  his  moral  worth  ; 
but  you  will  permit  me  to  say  that  I  do  not  recol" 
lect  that  this  gentleman  ever  gave  utterance  to  a  truly 
national  sentiment  after  he  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of 
Representatives."  This  was  almost  the  only  time  that  I 


8  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ever  knew  this  liberal-spirited  and  wonderfully  gifted 
man  to  express  himself,  in  private  converse,  in  terms  of 
decided  decrial  of  any  cotemporary  statesman  dead  or 
living. 

The  incidental  mention  of  Mr.  Webster's  name  brings 
up  in  my  memory  a  rather  curious  and  interesting  scene 
which  I  witnessed  in  the  summer  of  1850.  The  Compro 
mise  struggle,  which  had  been  in  progress  for  some  months, 
had  just  terminated.  The  dangers  which  were  supposed 
to  menace  the  destruction  of  the  Federal  Union  estab 
lished  by  our  fathers,  it  was  hoped,  had  been  effectually 
obviated  by  a  wise  and  salutary  "  plan  of  adjustment, *' 
as  I  remember  George  M.  Dallas  to  have  called  it,  and 
the  extremists  of  either  section,  it  was  believed,  had  been 
defeated  in  their  respective  schemes  of  mischief.  All 
Washington  was  rejoicing  over  this  noble  result,  and  pa 
triotic  men  of  all  parties  were  reveling  in  a  sort  of  frater 
nizing  jubilee.  Next  to  Mr.  Clay  himself,  Mr.  Webster 
was  supposed  to  have  signalized  himself  in  this  ever- 
memorable  conflict,  and  from  the  day  when  he  had  de 
livered  li  is  celebrated  7th  of  March  speech  lie  had  been 
receiving  every  hour,  in  one  form  or. another,  the  tokens 
of  public  gratitude.  This  was  perhaps  the  most  happy 
moment  of  his  life,  lie  had  efficiently  contributed  to 
save  the  Union  from  ruin  and  his  native  land  from  blood 
shed  and  devastation,  by  aiding  in  the  bringing  of  men 
of  genuine  national  sentiment  into  manly  and  heroic  com 
bination  for  the  overthrow  of  sectional  factionists,  alike 
of  the  South  and  of  the  North.  He  had  risked  his  own 
beloved  popularity  in  that  contest,  perhaps  more  seriously 
than  any  other  man  ;  but  the  Republic  was  safe,  and  his 
own  great  soul  was  full  of  gladness  and  gratitude.  Just 
about  this  time  the  Russian  Minister  of  that  period,  the 
well-known  Mr.  Bodisco,  summoned  the  august  Secretary 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  9 

of  State  under  President  Fillmore  and  the  members  of  the 
two  Committees  on  Foreign  Affairs  of  Congress  to  a  din 
ner  at  his  mansion  in  Georgetown,  to  do  appropriate 
honor  to  the  birthday  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas,  which 
was  then  at  hand.  Several  of  the  new  Cabinet  of  Mr. 
Fillmore  I  recollect  also  to  have  been  present  on  this  oc_ 
casion,  and,  among  others,  Mr.  Stuart,  of  Virginia,  then 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  Seldom  has  a  more  splendid 
banquet  been  spread,  and  greatly  was  it  enjoyed  by  all 
who  had  been  invited  to  partake  of  it.  Mr.  Webster  of 
fered  the  toast  in  honor  of  his  Imperial  Majesty,  and  ac 
companied  it  with  one  of  the  most  dignified,  conciliatory, 
and  truly  statesmanlike  speeches  I  ever  listened  to_ 
Neither  Pericles  nor  Tacitus,  in  their  most  inspired  mo 
ments,  could  have  given  a  more  noble  and  felicitous  ex 
pression  to  stately  and  elevated  thoughts  and  sentiments 
concerning  the  happiness  and  true  glory  of  governments 
and  of  peoples.  When  the  dinner  was  over,  Mr.  Web 
ster,  in  his  most  bland  and  courteous  manner,  approach, 
ing  Mr.  Stuart  and  myself,  invited  us  to  accompany  him 
in  his  carriage  back  to  Washington,  suggesting  that  he 
would  be  pleased  if  we  would  go  with  him  also  to  the 
opera,  where  Jenny  Lind  was  to  regale,  for  the  last  time, 
a  Washington  audience  with  her  charming  minstrelsy. 
There  was,  of  course,  no  refusing  such  an  invitation,  so 
we  hurried  forward  with  glowing  anticipations  of  enjoy 
ment  to  the  appointed  scene  of  entertainment.  On  arriv 
ing  at  the  door  of  the  opera-house  Mr.  Webster  entered 
in  his  grandest  manner,  and  slowly  passed  down  the  cen 
tral  aisle  of  the  building.  It  chanced  that  Jenny  Lind 
was  then  on  the  platform,  and  was  about  to  commence 
singing  our  inspiring  national  anthem, "  The  Star-Spangled 
Banner."  So  soon  as  Mr.  Webster's  approach  was  per 
ceived  the  assemblage  spontaneously  broke  forth  with 


10  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES 

tempestuous  applause,  evidently  recognizing  it  as  a  re 
markable  coincidence  that  the  renowned  defender  of  the 
Constitution  should  have  happened  to  come  in  at  the  very 
moment  that  the  sacred  emblem  of  the  nation's   liberty 
and  union  was  on  the  eve  of  being  rapturously  apostro 
phized  in  song.     So  soon  as  the  audience  settled  down 
into  quietude  the  inspiring  tones  of  Jenny  Lind's  mar 
velous  voice  were  heard.     Never,  either  before  or  since, 
have  I  been  made  so  overwhelmingly  sensible  as  I  was  on 
that  occasion  of  the  commingled  power  of  music  and  sen 
timent.     The  whole  concourse  really  appeared  to  be  elec 
trified.     Mr.  Webster  was  so  transported   with   delight 
that  he  actually  seemed  almost  to  become  unconscious  of 
the  presence  of  others,  and  hummed  very  distinctly  in 
unison  with  the  varying  tones  of  the  songstress.     All  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  soul  had   evidently  been  kindled  into 
flame;  all  his  patriotic  pride  had  been  awakened,  and  his 
whole  moral  nature  appeared  to  have  been  "touched  and 
inspired"  by   the  seraphic  sounds   to  which    he  was  an 
enraptured  listener.     When  the  song  was  over,  Mr.  Web 
ster — as  if  impelled  by  a  sense  of  official  duty  to  offer,  in 
the  name  of  the  great  nation  which  he  felt  himself  enti 
tled   in   some  degree   to  represent  on   this  occasion,  the 
formal  tribute  of  its  respect — rose  from  his  seat,  and,  step 
ping  forward  to  a  central  position  between  the  audience 
and  the  platform  upon  which  Jenny  Lind  was  standing, 
made  her  one  of  the  most  honoring  and  majestic  bows 
I  ever  beheld.      The  amiable  and  accomplished  recipient 
of  a  homage  as  unexpected  as  it  must  have  been  gratify 
ing,  manifested  something  of  a   graceful   and   blushing 
embarrassment,  but  courtesied  notwithstanding  most  pro 
foundly  in  response,  upon  which  the  assembled  multitude 
gave  vent  to  their  delight   in   most  vociferous  applause. 
A  second  bow  was  administered,  with  precisely  similar 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  11 

accompaniments.  A  third  one  was  tendered, "when  the 
charming  "Swedish  Nightingale,"  as  she  was  called,  in 
continently  took  wing  and  became  invisible  to  our  fond 
and  admiring  eyes,  perchance  forever!  The  newspapers 
next  morning  duly  noted  this  interesting  incident,  and, 
much  to  their  credit  be  it  spoken,  made  none  but  the 
kindest  comments  thereupon.  Certainly,  all  who  had  the 
happiness  to  be  present  that  night  withdrew  to  their 
homes  both  loving  and  honoring  more  highly  than  they 
had  ever  done  before  the  high-souled  and  grandly-endowed 
statesman  of  Massachusetts,  after  this  wondrous  politico- 
histrionic  performance  of  his. 


12  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  II. 

MR.  BERRIEN — FRANCIS    S.  KEY CHARLES    J.  INGERSOLL — MR. 

WIRT — MRS.  LEE — GENERAL  LEE — WILLIAM  H.  FITZHUGH— 
GENERAL  GRANT. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  at  any  time  witnessed  a 
more  interesting  forensic  discussion  than  one  to  which  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  listening  in   the  chamber  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  beginning  of  the 
month  of  March,  1825.     A  vessel  engaged  in  the  African 
slave  trade  had  been  a  month   or  two  before  seized  by  a 
revenue   cutter   of  the  Government    upon    the  coast  of 
Florida,  and  had   been   regularly  libeled  for  confiscation 
under  the  act  of  Congress  declaring  this  species  of  traffic 
to  be  piracy.     This  case  involved  pecuniary  interests  of 
much  magnitude,  and  certain  moral  considerations,  also? 
of  much  delicacy  and  dignity.     The  argument   attracted 
a  large  assemblage  of  refined  and   intelligent  persons  of 
either  sex.     The  discussion  was  opened  by  the  celebrated 
Francis  S.  Key,  so  honorably  known  then  and  now  as  the 
author  of  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner."     Mr.  Key  had 
been  employed  to  aid  the  Attorney  General,  (Mr.  Wirt,) 
while  Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  of  Philadelphia,  and  John  M. 
Berrien,  of  Georgia,  were  enlisted  in  the  defense.     I  was 
very  much   entertained  with   the  whole  argument,  but  I 
was  particularly  charmed  with  the  speech  of  Mr.  Key  and 
that  of  Mr.  Berrien,  both  of  which  I    now  propose   to 
notice  very  briefly.     Mr.  Key  was  tall,  erect,  and  of  ad 
mirable  physical  proportions.     There  dwelt  usually  upon 
his  handsome  and  winning  features  a  soft  and  touching 
pensiveness  of  expression  almost  bordering  on  sadness,  but 
which,  in  moments  of  special  excitement,  or  when  any- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  13 

thing  occurred  to  awaken  the  dormant  heroism  of  his 
nature,  or  to  call  into  action  the  higher  powers  of  his 
vigorous  and  well-cultivated  intellect,  gave  place  to  a 
bright  ethereality  of  aspect  and  a  nohle  audacity  of  tone 
and  gesture  which  pleased  while  it  dazzled  the  beholder- 
His  voice  was  capable  of  being  in  the  highest  degree 
touching  and  persuasive.  His  whole  gesticulation  was 
natural,  graceful,  and  impressive,  and  he  was  as  completely 
free  from  everything  like  affectation  or  rhetorical  grimace 
as  any  public  speaker  I  have  known.  He  had  a  singular 
flow  of  choice  and  pointed  phraseology,  such  as  could  not 
fail  to  be  pleasing  to  persons  of  taste  and  discernment ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  no  one  ever  heard  him  exhibit  his 
extraordinary  powers  of  discussion,  to  whom  the  ideas  to 
which  he  essayed  to  give  expression  seemed  at  all  cloudy 
or  perplexed,  or  his  elocution  clogged  and  torpid,  even  for 
the  shortest  possible  period  of  time.  On  this  occasion,  he 
greatly  surpassed  the  expectations  of  his  most  admiring 
friends.  The  subject  was  particularly  suited  to  his  habits 
of  thought,  and  was  one  which  had  long  enlisted,  in  a 
special  manner,  the  generous  sensibilities  of  his  soul.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  he  said  all  that  the  case  demanded, 
and  yet  no  more  than  was  needful  to  be  said ;  and  he 
close  writh  a  thrilling  and  even  electrifying  picture  of  the 
horrors  connected  with  the  African  slave  trade,  which 
would  have  done  honor  either  to  a  Pitt  or  a  Wilberforce 
in  their  palmiest  days. 

Mr.  Berrien  (with  whom  I  afterward  had  the  honor  of 
enjoying  much  familiar  intercourse)  was  now  making  his 
first  public  appearance  in  Washington.  His  fame,  both  as 
a  jurist  and  advocate,  had  preceded  him.  His  early  affili 
ation  with  the  Federal  party  had  heretofore  operated  as 
an  insuperable  impediment  to  his  political  advancement 
in  Georgia,  but  being  now  in  full  unison  with  the  politi- 


14  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

cal  sentiment  then  prevailing,  the  Legislature  of  that 
State  had  recently  elected  him  to  a  seat  in  the  national 
Senate,  a  special  session  of  which  body  was  expected  to 
commence  on  the  4th  of  March. 

The  advent  of  Mr.  Berrien  had  naturally  awakened 
much  curiosity,  and  when  he  rose  to  address  the  court  he 
found  himself  encircled  by  a  vast  and  eager  assemblage. 
From  the  beginning  of  his  grave  and  impressive  exordium, 
up  even  to  the  close  of  his  splendid  peroration,  he  was 
listened  to  with  unbroken  attention,  and  never  was  speech 
more  deserving  of  this  quiet  but  expressive  homage.  Mr. 
.Berrien  appeared  to  be  at  this  time  about  forty-five  years 
of  age,  but  it  was  whispered  in  certain  circles  that  he  was 
at  least  ten  years  older.  He  was  of  a  medium  height? 
exceedingly  compact  in  his  frame,  agile  in  all  his  move 
ments,  of  a  fresh  and  healthy  complexion,  neat  and  even 
elegant  in  his  attire,  and  as  stately  and  dignified  in  his 
general  demeanor  as  would  at  all  have  comported  with 
that  cordial  courtesy  and  flowing  affability  for  which  he 
was  ever  distinguished.  His  visage  betokened  much  of 
intellectual  power.  His  forehead,  though  not  unusually 
high,  was  broad  and  well  developed  ;  his  eyes  large,  lus 
trous,  and  penetrating;  his  voice,  which  I  suspect  to  have 
been  assidulously  cultivated,  was  deficient  neither  in 
compass  nor  melody  ;  it  was  distinct,  sonorous,  and  im 
pressive.  He  evinced  on  this  occasion  the  most  complete 
self-possession,  and  seemed  to  hold  under  easy  and  effective 
control  all  the  faculties  of  his  mind  and  all  the  passions  of 
his  soul.  He  wandered  not  for  a  moment  from  the  main 
points  in  controversy ;  he  indulged  in  no  extravagant 
flights  of  fancy ;  dwelt  not  over  long  upon  any  of  the 
topics  discussed  by  him ;  attempted  no  tinseled  rhetoric  ; 
essayed  no  pompous  declamation;  put  in  use  no  trivial 
strokes  ot' humor;  uttered  no  florid  panegyric,  and  ful- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  15 

minated  no  tempestuous,  overstrained  denunciation.  The 
clear  and  copious  stream  of  his  methodical  and  well- 
digested  logic  flowed  on  in  steady  and  unruffled  grandeur, 
like  some  smooth,  majestic  river,  fed  by  exhaustless  foun 
tains,  ever  moving  forward  evenly  within  its  banks,  never 
spreading  out  its  waters  in  unnavigable  shallows,  nor 
breaking  forth  beyond  its  assigned  boundaries  and  carry 
ing  desolation  and  terror  to  regions  far  remote.  This  first 
speech  of  Mr.  Berrien  in  Washington  was  perhaps  as  bril 
liant  a  debut  as  this  country  has  yet  known ;  and  I  would 
willingly  travel  many  miles  to  hear  one  at  all  approach 
ing  to  it  in  felicity  of  conception  or  effectiveness  of  de 
livery. 

When  it  was  brought  to  a  close,  I  looked  round  upon 
that  quiet  and  refined  assemblage,  and  saw  unmistakable 
tokens  of  approval  upon  all  faces.  A  goodly  number  of 
those  present  were  then  known  to  me.  Among  the  audi 
tors  I  well  remember  a  bevy  of  fair  ladies  and  handsome, 
well-dressed  gentlemen,  who  occupied  a  sofa  to  the  left  of 
the  bench  upon  which  the  judges  sat.  I  will  mention  one 
or  two  of  them,  beginning  with  William  H.  Fitzhugh,  of 
Ravensworth,  in  Virginia.  This  gentleman  possessed  a 
noble  and  prepossessing  exterior.  His  face  was  marked 
alike  with  benevolence  and  intellect.  He  was  reputed  to 
be  wealthy,  and  doubtless  was  so.  He  was  generally 
looked  upon  as  decidedly  the  most  rising  young  states. ' 
man  in  the  Old  Dominion,  now  that  Armistead  C.  Mason 
was  in  the  grave.  He  had  for  some  years  honorably  occu 
pied  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  Virginia,  and  stood  high  both 
as  a  speaker  and  as  a  sound,  practical  legislator.  He  was 
born  and  reared  to  manhood,  as  I  have  learned,  in  a  noble 
mansion,  yet  standing  upon  the  bank  of  the  Rappahan- 
nock,  just  opposite  Fredericksburg,  and  in  sight  of  the 
neat  and  comely  dwelling  in  which  the  childhood  and 


10  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

youth  of  the  great  Washington  received  that  training 
and  nurture  which  fitted  him  for  the  glorious  part  he  was 
to  take  in  his  country's  history.  Mr.  Fitzhugh  was  him 
self  possessed  of  as  much  of  the  true  Washington ian  spirit 
as  any  man  then  living.  He  died  very  suddenly  a  year 
or  two  after  the  scene  which  I  have  been  describing,  leav 
ing  behind  him  a  wife,  who,  I  rejoice  to  learn,  is  still  liv 
ing.  This  lady  was  also  present  during  the  speech  of  Mr. 
Berrien,  as  was  also  Mrs.  Custis,  the  wife  of  George 
Washington  Parke  Custis,  formerly  so  well  known  in 
Washington,  and  so  much  beloved  and  venerated. 

Seated  near  these  ladies  was  one  whom  I  am  tempted 
more  particularly  to  describe.  I  allude  to  the  only 
daughter  of  Mrs.  Custis,  the  present  Mrs.  Lee.*  She  was 
then  about  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  was  indeed  "  the  ob 
served  of  all  observers."  Her  personal  charms  were  such  as 
must  inevitably  have  commanded  admiration  and  sympa 
thy,  independent  of  the  adscititious  advantages  which  so 
richly  clustered  about  her.  No  one,  I  am  confident,  has 
ever  beheld  a  more  placid  and  winning  face  than  that 

A  O 

which  was  now  presented  to  my  gaze.  She  was  richly 
but  plainly  attired,  as  was  her  mother,  and  there  was  a 
modest  and  reserved  dignity  about  both  of  them  that  sig 
nificantly  bespoke  their  rank  and  bringing  up.  Miss 
Custis  was  described  to  me  by  those  who  knew  her  best 
as  a  young  lady  of  sound  and  vigorous  intellect,  in  which 
judgment  and  discrimination  decidedly  predominated. 
Her  education  had  been  in  all  respects  such  as  was  best 
calculated  to  make  her  alike  happy  herself  and  the  source 
of  abundant  utility  and  happiness  to  others.  Those  who 
had  beheld  her  venerated  ancestress,  the  wife  of  Wash 
ington,  often  pointed  out  the  striking  resemblance  which 
they  supposed  themselves  to  have  discerned  between  this 

*Thi3  amiable  aud  accomplished  lady  died  a  month  or  two  after  this  notice  of  her. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  17 

noblest  of  American  women  and  the  youthful  representa 
tive  of  her  virtues  and  her  blood.  Miss  Custis  was  the 
heiress  expectant  of  two  of  the  largest  estates  that  Vir 
ginia  could  then  boast,  and  it  is  rather  a  curious  and 
interesting  fact  that  her  uncle,  William  H.  Fitzhugh, 
already  spoken  of,  was  one  of  the  first  large  owners  of 
slaves  in  Virginia  who  provided  for  their  emancipation 
by  will,  and  provided  liberally  also  for  their  future  educa 
tion  and  support. 

I  had  not  the  honor  of  forming  Mrs.  Lee's  personal 
acquaintance  in  1825,  and  the  various  accidents  of  a  vexed 
and  tumultuous  life  withheld  me  from  the  enjoyment  of 
a  blessing  which  I  should  always  have  so  highly  prized 
until  the  lapse  of  thirty-seven  years  had  proven  to  both  of 
us  how  "  time  steals  on  us  and  steals  from  us  ;  snatching 
fire  from  the  mind  and  vigor  from  the  limb."  When  I 
met  her  by  accident  in  Richmond  one  morning  in  the 
year  1862  I  found  her  pale,  attenuated,  ^and  hobbling  on 
crutches.  '  She  was  then  the  mother  of  a  numerous  and 
worthy  offspring,  and  the  dutiful  and  loving  wife  of  one 
of  the  most  renowned  military  commanders  of  the  age. 
How  my  heart  sorrowed  over  the  troubles  and  sufferings 
which  I  was  told  she  had  been  compelled  to  endure  as 
the  result  of  a  most  calamitous  and  wasting  war,  in  the 
bringing  on  of  which,  perhaps,  no  two  persons  on  this 
broad  continent  had  less  participancy  than  her  noble  hus 
band  and  herself.  I  was  able  to  see  but  little  of  this 
excellent  lady  afterward  ;  but  I  rejoice  to  learn  from  the 
lips  of  many  who  held  familiar  intercourse  with  her  that, 
though  daily  and  hourly  enduring  discomforts  and  priva 
tions  such  as  war  alone  can  inflict — though  suffering 
under  the  tortures  of  a  malady  than  which  not  one  can  be 
mentioned  more  painful  and  humiliating — though  agon 
ized  with  sights  of  desolation  and  anguish  which  it  is  not 

2R 


18  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

in  the  power  of  human  language  to  describe,  she  yet 
ever  maintained  a  cheerful  serenity  of  temper;  was  never 
heard  to  utter  the  language  of  complaint  or  of  decrial ; 
occupied  herself  night  and  day  in  deeds  of  chanty  and 
love,  and  up  even  to  the  end  of  that  unhappy  conflict  so 
demeaned  herself  as  to  show  that  in  all  things  she  was 
just  such  a  matron  as  either  Greece  or  Rome  would  have 
been  proud  to  recognize,  and  as  all  America  might  well 
admire  and  love. 

Surely  the  day  will  come,  and  I  must  hope  it  is  not 
now  far  distant,  when  all  the  virtues  which  adorn  our 
noble  countrymen  and  lend  luster  to  American  woman 
hood  will  be  everywhere  estimated  at  their  true  value ; 
when  all  of  heroism  or  of  wisdom  which  belongs  to  the 
North,  to  the  South,  to  the  East,  or  to  the  West,  in  any 
part  of  our  wide-extended  empire,  will  be  recognized  as 
part  and  parcel  of  the  u  moral  treasures  of  the  country, 
and  of  the  whole  country  ;"  when  the  sage  and  good  of 
all  the  States  into  which  our  Republic  is  divided  shall 
meet  again  as  friends  and  brethren,  as  compatriots  and 
co-inheritors  of  civil  institutions  so  grand  in  their  original 
structure  and  so  happily  amplified  and  ameliorated  by 
the  lessons  of  a  sage  experience  as  justly  to  command  the 
homage  and  elicit  the  imitation  of  all  the  lovers  of  free 
dom  to  be  found  anywhere  upon  the  planet  which  we 
occupy. 

There  are  two  remarkable  facts  in  our  recent  history  as 
a  people,  the  consideration  of  which  (in  connection  with 
the  generous  act  of  amnesty  granted  by  Congress  at  the 
last  session  of  that  body,  and  the  general  amity  and  con 
fraternity  of  feeling  engendered  thereby)  has  given  me 
much  of  gratification  and  of  encouragement  as  to  the 
future  of  our  country. 

General  Grant  was  called  upon  six  years  ago,  in  a  man- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  19 

tier  and  under  circumstances  difficult  to  be  resisted  by 
any  ordinary  man,  to  cause  Generals  Lee  and  Joe  John 
ston  to  be  arrested  and  tried  for  treason^  despite  the  solemn 
parol  which  had  been  accorded  to  them,  and  in  shameful 
disregard  of  the  fidelity  with  which  its  conditions  had 
been  complied  with.  There  were  not  a  few  then  in  whose 
bosoms  revenge  was  rankling,  and  some  even  in  high 
places  were  heard  to  cry  aloud  that  the  "time  had  come 
to  make  treason  odious."  What  was  the  conduct  of  this 
great  captain  when  thus  called  upon  to  do  a  deed  of 
shame  ?  He  indignantly  refused  to  be  used  as  an  instru 
ment  for  the  perpetration  of  such  injustice  and  tyranny  ; 
and,  with  something  of  the  stern  and  lofty  virtue  of  an 
Aristides  or  a  Cato,  nobly  risked  his  own  official  position 
upon  the  result ;  thereby,  in  my  judgment,  acquiring  more 
of  true  glory  than  ever  he  had  previously  done  in  all  the. 
successful  battles  which  he  had  fought  in  defense  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  Union.  Who  has  yet  dared  openly 
to  censure  General  Grant  for  acting  this  noble  part  ? 

It  is  said  that  General  Lee,  only  a  few  weeks  before  his 
lamented  decease,  was  accosted  by  a  maimed  and  tattered 
soldier  near  his  own  gate,  who  had  fought  on  the  side  of 
the  Government  in  the  late  unhappy  war.  The  soldier 
was  poor,  diseased,  and  apparently  friendless.  The  re 
nowned  Confederate  commander  heard  the  tale  of  suffer 
ings  of  that  unfortunate  soldier  with  fixed  attention,  burst 
into  tears,  poured  the  sweet  words  of  consolation  and 
encouragement  into  his  ears,  and  emptied  the  contents  of 
his  purse  into  his  weak  and  trembling  hands.  Had  all 
America  been  witness  of  this  touching  and  impressive 
scene,  where  is  the  monster  that  would  have  presumed 
still  to  insist  that  discord  should  continue  in  the  land  of 
Washington,  and  that  the  rancors  produced  by  this  dire 
conflict  should  be  yet  prolonged  by  deeds  of  reciprocal 
unkindness  ? 


20  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  III. 

MR.  CLAY — MR.  POLK — MR.  RITCHIE — GENERAL-  BAYLEY — BAR 
GAIN,  INTRIGUE,  AND  MANAGEMENT  CHARGES — COMPROMISE 
MEASURES  OF  1850 — LYNN  BOYD — GOVERNOR  PRATT — MR. 
DICKINSON — MR.  DAWSON. 

Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  in  one  of  the  most  striking  num 
bers  of  the  Rambler,  insists  that  it  is  by  no  means  so  im 
portant  that  mankind  should  be  the  constant  recipients  of 
instruction  absolutely  new  touching  the  manifold  duties 
of  life  as  it  is  that  they  should  be  from  time  to  time 
reminded  of  moral  obligations  of  which  they  may  for 
some  cause  have  become  temporarily  oblivious.  Whether 
this  renovation  of  early  impressions  shall  be  brought 
about  by  a  bold  and  emphatic  restatement  of  first  prin 
ciples  in  the  abstract,  or,  in  lieu  thereof,  the  value  of 
these  first  principles  and  the  beneficial  eifects  of  faith 
fully  observing  them  shall  be  made  manifest  by  the  season 
able  citation  of  opposite  examples,  as  well  as  by  a  state 
ment  of  the  deleterious  consequences  certain  to  flow  from 
altogether  disregarding  or  ignoring  them,  is,  perhaps,  a 
question  which  a  mere  Reminiscent  of  past  occurrences  is 
not  in  any  way  called  upon  to  decide. 

To  proceed,  then  :  I  had  frequently  seen  Mr.  Clay,  both 
before  he  became  Secretary  of  State,  in  1825,  and  after 
ward,  but  I  had  formed  no  particular  personal  acquain 
tance  with  him.  I  had  never  doubted  his  abilities,  nor 
had  I  failed  to  give  him  credit  for  many  high  moral  and 
intellectual  qualities;  but  I  had  long  regarded  him  as  the 
most  efficient  champion  and  advocate  of  political  opinions 
altogether  repugnant  to  the  creed  of  what  was  known  as 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  2t 

the  Democratic  party,  and  I  had,  on  that  account,  cher 
ished  strong  prejudices  toward  him,  and  become  deeply 
distrustful  of  his  motives  and  purposes.  How  many  thou 
sands  of  our  countrymen,  under  similar  influences,  have, 
in  every  stage  of  our  history  as  a  people,  been  uncon 
sciously  guilty  of  similar  injustice!  How  often  has  the 
cause  of  free  institutions  suffered  on  this  continent  from 
the  domination  of  extreme  party  zeal,  in  a  thousand  ways, 
since  the  days  of  the  first  inauguration  of  Washington  ! 
How  ungenerously  did  the  blind  and  infuriated  zealots  of 
faction  accuse  even  the  Father  of  his  Country  of  being 
desirous  of  establishing  an  imperial  despotism!  How,  in 
a  similar  manner,  and  with  equal  injustice,  was  Jackson 
arraigned  by  some  of  those  who  preferred  the  interests  of 
party  to  the  repose  and  well-being  of  the  Republic ! 

Mr.  Clay  visited  Washington  city  in  the  winter  of 
1847-'48.  He  stopped  here  for  a  few  days  only,  on  his 
way  to  Philadelphia.  The  Mexican  war  had  been  in  pro 
gress  for  a  year  or  two.  Our  armies  had  been  signally 
successful,  and  General  Scott  was  already  in  possession  of 
Mexico.  Our  noble  soldiers  were  dying  by  thousands 
upon  a  foreign  soil.  The  public  morals  were  obviously 
undergoing  much  deterioration,  as  the  natural  effect  of  a 
war  of  conquest.  Other  evils  were  at  the  moment  plainly 
in  view  ;  evils  wrhich  every  sagacious  mind  saw  must  be 
speedily  realized  unless  peace  could  be  in  some  honorable 
manner  restored.  A  treaty  had  just  been  made  with  the 
Mexican  Government,  and  a  copy  of  it  had  been  received 
in  Washington.  Its  various  provisions  were  not  precisely 
known  at  the  time,  and  there  was  much  speculation  afloat 
in  regard  thereto.  Mr.  Folk's  Cabinet  were  said  to  be  at 
a  stand  upon  the  question  whether  or  not  this  patriotic 
and  excellent  personage  should  send  the  treaty  into  the 
Senate  for  ratification.  It  was  under  these  circumstances 


22  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

that  Mr.  Clay,  on  the  evening  of  his  setting  out  for  Phila 
delphia,  visited  the  White  House  and  asked  an  interview 
with  Mr.  Polk.  It  chanced  that  a  company  of  gentlemen 
had  been  invited  to  dine  with  the  President  on  that  very 
evening.  I  had  the  honor  to  be  of  the  party.  When  we 
were  ushered  into  the  reception  room  Mr.  Clay  was  just 
taking  his  leave.  So  soon  as  he  had  made  his  exit  Mr. 
Polk  turned  to  us,  with  a  bright  smile  of  satisfaction  upon 
his  face,  and  said : 

"Gentlemen,  Mr.  Clay  has  just  surprised  and  gratified  me  very 
highly,  and  has  proved  to  me  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  magnanimous 
and  patriotic  men  living.  He  told  me,  in  the  interview  that  has  this 
moment  terminated,  that  he  had  been  informed  that  a  treaty  with 
Mexico  was  in  the  Department  of  State,  awaiting  ratification,  and  that 
it  was  doubtful  whether  it  would  be  sent  to  the  Senate ;  that,  from 
what  he  could  learn  of  its  provisions,  he  could  not  doubt  that  it  was 
entitled  to  favorable  consideration;  that  he  was  aware  that  in  the 
present  condition  of  parties  there  was  some  reason  to  dread  that  my 
administration  would  be  bitterly  assailed  in  several  quarters,  no  matter 
what  course  I  might  pursue  ;  but  that  he  felt  bound  to  say  to  me,  ere 
he  left  Washington,  that,  should  I  conclude  to  give  the  country  peace 
on  the  basis  of  the  treaty,  all  the  influence  which  he  might  possess 
would  be  openly  and  earnestly  put  in  exercise  in  my  behalf,  and  he 
was  certain  that  his  Whig  friends,  in  Congress  and  out  of  it,  would 
cheerfully  act  in  this  matter  on  his  advice." 

Mr.  Polk,  more  than  once  on  this  occasion,  strongly 
commended  Mr.  Clay's  generous  and  manly  conduct ;  and 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  unexpected  guarantee 
of  support  had  much  influence  in  causing  the  treaty  to  be 
dispatched  to  the  Senate  for  its  approval,  as  in  point  of 
fact  it  was  almost  immediately  after. 

A  year  or  two  subsequent  to  this  proceeding  the  coun 
try  became  fearfully  convulsed  by  questions  growing  out 
of  this  same  treaty.  Two  sectional  parties,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  Republic,  were  fiercely  arrayed 
against  each  other,  and  no  reasonable  man  could  doubt 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  23 

that  civil  war  was  imminent.  Now  it  was  that  Mr.  Clay 
left  his  own  home,  and  resolved,  though  at  the  time  in 
exceedingly  feeble  health,  to  risk  his  life  in  an  effort  to 
avert  the  dire  consequences  then  menaced.  The  crisis 
which  had  arisen  was  indeed  full  of  peril  and  difficulty. 
There  were  many  conscientious  men  on  both  sides  who 
felt  bound  to  keep  up  the  warfare  then  in  progress.  There 
were  numerous  local  demagogues,  also,  on  either  side, 
resolved  to  keep  up  agitation  for  their  own  individual 
benefit.  There  was  no  man  in  either  house  of  Congress 
who  was  prepared  to  take  the  lead  in  bringing  forward  a 
plan  of  national  pacification,  and  who,  at  the  same  time, 
could  be  considered  to  possess  sufficient  weight  and  influ 
ence  in  all  sections  of  the  Union  to  secure  general  acqui 
escence  in  it.  Mr.  Clay  was  yet  reverenced  by  the  Whig 
masses  all  over  the  land.  He  was  a  considerable  slave 
holder,  but  yet  had  been  known  for  several  years  to  be  in 
favor  of  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation.  He  had  had 
no  hand  in  bringing  on  the  war  with  Mexico,  but  after  it 
had  been  declared  he  had  been  an  earnest  and  efficient 
supporter  of  it,  and  had  lost  a  favorite  son  in  one  of  the 
battles  which  had  occurred  in  the  course  of  its  prosecu 
tion.  He  was  fearless,  sagacious,  and  eloquent,  and  was 
known  to  be  endowed  in  an  eminent  degree  with  all  the 
qualities  necessary  to  successful  political  leadership  at 
such  a  moment  as  had  then  been  reached.  The  result  of 
his  wondrous  exertions  has  been  long  known  to  the  world, 
but  there  are  some  particulars  connected  with  the  history 
of  this  trying  period  which  may  not  now  be  distinctly 
remembered  by  all,  and  liberal  minded  men  will,  I  am 
sure,  excuse  me  if  I  dwell  somewhat  longer  than  I  should 
otherwise  do  upon  the  merits  of  a  man  who  has  of  late 
been  assailed  in  a  wanton  and  unpardonable  manner  by 
more  than  one  of  those  who  will  certainly  not  be  regarded 


'21  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

by  an  unbiased  posterity  as  even  worthy  to  tie  the  shoe- 
latchets  of  the  great  and  good  man  whom  they  have 
dared  to  calumniate  so  cruelly  after  his  consignment  to 
the  tomb. 

There  are  two  or  three  anecdotes  connected  with  this 
period  of  Mr.  Clay's  history  which  I  will  here  recite.  It 
is  known  that  in  the  columns  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer— 
a  paper  of  great  and  deserved  influence,  and  which  was 
edited  for  many  years  by  the  celebrated  Thomas  Ritchie — 
much  prominence  had  been  given  to  the  memorable  "  Bar 
gain  and  Intrigue  "  scandal,  which  had  been  hatched  into 
existence  during  the  winter  of  1825,  and  which  in  its  day 
had  been  exceedingly  potential  in  separating  good  citizens 
from  each  other,  as  well  as  in  bringing  undeserved  oppro 
brium  upon  some  of  the  brightest  public  names  in  Amer 
ica.  Mr.  Ritchie's  own  high  character,  both  as  a  gentle 
man  and  journalist,  had  lent  much  dignity  to  accusations 
which,  perhaps,  but  for  his  support  of  them,  would  have 
become  extinct  almost  in  the  very  moment  of  their  first 
promulgation.  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Ritchie  had  played 
together  in  boyhood,  and  had  maintained  relations  of 
close  amity  and  kindness  for  many  years  of  their  early 
manhood.  I  have  repeatedly  heard  from  Mr.  Clay's  own 
lips  that  the  circumstance  of  their  former  friendship  had 
rendered  Mr.  Ritchie's  decrial  of  him  peculiarly  galling. 
The  two  ancient  friends  had  now  become  bitter  and  ap 
parently  irreconcilable  enemies. 

The  condition  of  public  affairs  in  1850  was  such  as  to 
bring  these  pure-minded  and  disinterested  patriots  natu 
rally  into  the  same  train  of  thought  and  sentiment.  Both 
of  them  intensely  loved  the  American  Union.  Neither  of 
them  had  ever  given  even  temporary  sanction  to  the 
absurd  and  perilous  dogmas  of  nullification  and  secession. 
The  questions  which  had  so  long  arrayed  them  against 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  25 

each  other  as  prominent  members  of  two  opposing  politi 
cal  parties  had  been  for  the  most  part  disposed  of.  The 
Whig  party,  one  of  the  most  enlightened,  patriotic,  and 
truly  conservative  organizations  ever  known  in  this  coun 
try,  was  evidently  preparing  to  retire  gracefully  from  the 
field,  having  performed  its  particular  mission,  and  having 
no  such  insane  love  of  official  patronage  as  could  prompt 
it  to  keep  up  a  useless  and  mischievous  struggle,  in  which 
the  real  peace  and  welfare  of  the  Republic  could  not  be 
at  all  involved.  The  conflict  between  the  two  bodies  of 
sectional  extremists  already  referred  to  was  at  its  height. 
The  Republic  was,  in  truth,  tottering  upon  the  founda 
tions  which  the  sage  and  incorruptible  statesmen  of  a 
former  generation  had  established.  It  was  not  for  such 
men  as  Henry  Clay  and  Thomas  Ritchie  to  think  of  secur 
ing  party  ascendency  or  individual  advancement  whilst 
demagogues  of  varied  stamp  and  complexion  were,  under 
plausible  pretexts,  plotting  the  ruin  of  the  sacred  edifice 
of  liberty  itself.  It  was  under  such  circumstances  as 
these  that  Mr.  Ritchie  came  to  me  one  morning,  a  few 
weeks  after  Mr.  Clay  had  reached  Washington,  in  com 
pany  with  General  Bayley,  of  Virginia,  and  urged  that 
we  two  should  call  upon  Mr.  Clay  and  ask  him  to  offer  a 
resolution  in  the  Senate  for  the  raising  of  a  committee  of 
thirteen,  through  the  instrumentality  of  which  he  thought 
that  the  great  and  alarming  differences  then  existing 
might  be  reconciled,  and  general  national  brotherhood  be 
re-established.  Mr.  Ritchie  went  further  in  this  confer 
ence,  and  declared  the  opinion,  which  he  entertained,  that 
no  man  in  the  Republic  could  as  successfully  take  the 
lead  in  the  needed  Avork  of  pacification  as  Mr.  Clay.  In 
the  most  touching  and  impressive  manner  he  gave  utter 
ance  to  the  regret  which  he  felt  that  facts  connected  with 
contests  for  party  ascendency  in  former  days  should  so  far 


2H  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

have  estranged  Mr.  Clay  and  himself  from  each  other  that 
he  could  not  take  the  liberty  of  calling  upon  him  in  per 
son  and  conferring  with  him  in  regard  to  the  means  of 
averting  the  catastrophe  obviously  menaced.  Mr.  Ritchie, 
in  addition,  authorized  us  to  give  in  his  name  to  Mr.  Clay 
a  most  explicit  pledge  that,  should  he  conclude  to  adopt 
the  course  thus  indicated,  he  would  support  him  to  the 
utmost  in  the  widely-circulated  newspaper  he  was  then 
editing.  General  Bay  ley  and  myself  called  that  very 
evening:  upon  Mr.  Clay  in  his  parlor  at  the  National  Hotel. 
•He  met  us  in  the  most  gracious  and  cordial  manner,  and 
received  with  evident  pleasure  the  communication  with 
which  we  had  been  intrusted  by  Mr.  Ritchie.  He  declared 
his  warm  approval  of  the  plan  of  operation  suggested  by 
that  gentleman,  but  stated  that,  for  various  reasons  of  a 
very  peculiar  and  delicate  character,  he  would  prefer  that 
the  resolution  proposing  the  committee  of  thirteen  should 
be  brought  forward  in  the  Senate  by  some  other  individ 
ual.  I  afterward  agreed  to  otter  it,  on  the  express  condi 
tion  that  I  should  not  be  made  one  of  its  members,  and 
that  Mr.  Clay  himself  should  consent  to  preside  over  its 
deliberations.  No  one  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that,  in 
a  day  or  two  after,  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Ritchie  met,  became 
cordially  reconciled  to  each  other,  and  consulted  together 
often  in  the  most  fraternal  manner  at  every  stage  of  the 
great  struggle  which  at  last  resulted  in  the  adoption  of 
the  Compromise  enactments  of  1850.  Before  this  con 
summation  had  crowned  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Clay  and  his 
Union  friends,  on  a  very  warm  day  in  midsummer,  a  very 
large  party  of  Congressional  gentlemen  was  convened  at 
the  hospitable  mansion  of  Mr.  Sullivan,  of  this  city,  a  man 
universally  beloved  and  esteemed,  for  the  purpose  of  enjoy 
ing  a  dinner  good  enough,  indeed,  to  be  set  before  princes 
and  nobles.  Mr.  Clay  was  one  of  the  invited  guests,  as 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  27 

was  also  Mr.  Ritchie.  They  sat  upon  opposite  sides  of 
the  table.  Mr.  Clay  was  in  his  happiest  conversational 
mood,  and  poured  forth  mai^  a  choice  anecdote  concern 
ing  the  scenes  of  public  life  through  which  he  had  passed. 
It  was  but  natural  that  all  present  should  wish  to  hear 
him  say  something  touching  the  Compromise  struggle 
then  going  on,  and  the  chances  of  accomplishing  the  object 
which  all  of  us  had  so  much  at  heart ;  and  an  effort,  there 
fore,  was  made  to  call  him  out  thereupon.  He  talked 
upon  this  subject  for  some  time,  with  even  more  than  his 
accustomed  eloquence,  when  suddenly  his  mercurial  and 
impulsive  friend  of  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  "  rose  from  his  seat 
and  exclaimed :  "  Look  here,  Mr.  Clay,  if  you  will  really 
save  the  Union,  we  will  all  forgive  you  for  having  had 
Adarns  elected  in  1825  by  '-bargain,  intrigue,  and  manage 
ment?  '  "  Shut  your  mouth !"  exclaimed  Mr.  Clay,  in 
response ;  shut  your  mouth,  Tom  Ritchie ;  you  know 
perfectly  well  that  there  never  was  a  word  of  truth  in  that 
charge."  "  Very  well,  very  well,'  smilingly  responded 
Mr.  Ritchie  ;  "  I  say  to  you  now,  in  hearing  of  this  goodly 
company,  that  if  you  succeed  in  rescuing  the  Republic 
from  ruin,  and  I  should  survive  you,  Tom  Ritchie  will 
plant  a  sprig  of  laurel  upon  your  grave." 

I  should  not  omit  to  mention  here  that  Mr.  Clay,  a  few 
minutes  after  this  pleasant  badinage  between  himself  and 
Mr.  Ritchie,  in  a  very  solemn  and  formal  manner,  ad 
dressed  the  company  substantially  as  follows  :  "  Gentle 
men,  I  feel  it  to  be  due  to  such  an  occasion  as  the  present 
one  to  make  a  frank  confession.  Though  I  have  never 
doubted  the  propriety  of  my  own  conduct,  in  voting  for 
Mr.  Adams  myself  in  1825  and  advising  my  friends  to 
vote  for  him,  yet,  were  I  to  livo  this  part  of  my  public 
life  over  again,  I  should  not  deem  it  judicious  to  accept 
at  his  hands  the  Secretaryship  of  State.  By  doing  so  I 


28  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

injured  both  him  and  myself;  I  placed  myself  in  a  false 
position  before  the  country,  and  often  have  I  painfully 
felt  that  I  had  seriously  impaired  my  own  capacity  for 
public  usefulness." 

Another  incident,  having  much  affinity  with  the  one 
just  recited,  I  shall  now  recount.  Lynn  Boyd,  of  Ken 
tucky,  is  well  known  to  thousands  to  have  been  a  re 
spectable  and  efficient  Representative  in  Congress  from 
the  State  of  Kentucky.  He  was  a  zealous  Democratic 
partisan,  and  had  commenced  his  long  public  career 
as  an  ardent  supporter  of  General  Jackson.  Mr.  Boyd 
was  a  thoroughgoing  party  man  at  that  period  of  his  life, 
but  he  was,  notwithstanding,  an  upright  and  manly  gen 
tleman.  He  was  an  active  and  efficient  supporter  of  the 
"Bargain,  Intrigue,  and  Management"  accusation,  and 
his  great  popularity  in  the  district  which  he  so  long  repre 
sented  in  Congress  was  said  to  be  greatly  owing  to  his 
pursuing  this  course.  He  had  brought  himself  in  process 
of  time  to  distrust  Mr.  Clay  very  deeply,  and  even  to 
entertain  feelings  for  him  of  a  most  unfriendly  character. 
It  happened  that  Boyd  had  always  been  a  great  devotee 
to  the  Union  cause,  and  had  no  more  sympathy  with  seces 
sionists  and  nullifiers  than  Jackson  himself  had.  He  had 
been  a  diligent  observer  of  Mr.  Clay's  manly  and  states 
manlike  course  in  1850,  and  had  learned  to  honor  and  to 
love  him.  One  morning  he  came  into  my  room  at  the 
boarding-house  where  we  were  both  sojourning,  and  com 
missioned  me  to  go  in  his  behalf  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  say  that 
he  heartily  regretted  that  he  had  ever  called  his  integrity 
or  patriotism  in  question,  and  hoped  that  he  would  grant 
him  an  early  interview,  for  he  wished  to  confer  with  him 
freely  upon  the  momentous  questions  then  pending.  I 
undertook  this  honorable  mission  with  more  than  pleas 
ure.  I  was  authorized  by  Mr.  Clay  to  invite  Colonel 


CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES.  29 

Boyd  to  his  room,  as  I  did,  and  soon  had  the  satis 
faction  of  witnessing  a  meeting  between  them  entirely 
creditable  to  both  parties.  One  or  two  years  thereafter 
Mr.  Boyd  was  a  candidate  for  re-election  to  Congress  in 
his  old  district,  and  some  of  those  opposed  to  his  election 
endeavored  to  defeat  him  by  reminding  the  friends  and 
admirers  of  Mr.  Clay  of  Boyd's  former  hostility  to  him. 
This  gentleman  addressed  me  a  letter  at  the  time,  asking 
my  testimony  touching  the  facts  above  stated.  This  was 
of  course  most  cheerfully  given,  and  I  had  the  gratifica 
tion  of  afterward  learning  that  Boyd's  success  in  the  coif- 
test  was  in  part  owing  to  the  letter  which  I  had  written 
to  him  on  this  subject,  and  which  had  been  published  and 
circulated  very  freely  in  the  district. 

It  was  during  this  same  eventful  summer  that  my  friend 
and  early  schoolmate,  Senator  Pratt,  of  Maryland,  invited 
Mr.  Clay  and  several  other  gentlemen  to  visit  him  at  An 
napolis  and  spend  a  day  or  two  with  him  and  his  charm 
ing  family  at  Jheir  hospitable  mansion.  Not  one  of  those 
who  had  been  thus  summoned  refused  the  proffered  honor, 
and  I  well  remember  the  delightful  scenes  through  which 
we  there  passed,  and  in  which  Mr.  Clay  talked  more  freely 
than  I  ever  knew  him  to  do,  displaying  colloquial  powers 
such  as  to  me  were,  I  confess,  alike  surprising  and  capti 
vating.  One  morning  he  was  invited  to  visit  the  Capitol, 
at  Annapolis,  where  the  old  Congress  were  sitting  at  the 
time  that  General  Washington  surrendered  his  sword  to 
that  body,  and  returned  to  private  life.  The  invitation 
was,  of  course,  accepted,  and  he  set  off  on  foot  for  that 
venerable  hall,  accompanied  by  his  friends,  including,  as 
I  recollect,  Mr.  Dickinson,  of  New  York  ;  Mr.  Dawson,  of 
Georgia,  and  others.  When  we  reached  our  place  of  des 
tination  we  found  ourselves  quickly  surrounded  by  a  con 
siderable  concourse  of  citizens.  Mr.  Clay,  on  getting 


30  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

within  that  room  where  the  Revolutionary  Congress  held 
its  immortal  deliberations,  asked  that  some  one  would 
point  out  to  him  the  precise  spot  where  Washington  stood 
when  the  scene  just  referred  to  had  its  progress.  When 
this  was  done  he  walked  to  it,  and,  gazing  toward  the 
chair  of  the  presiding  officer  of  that  body,  he  raised  his 
right  hand,  obviously  in  imitation  of  the  Father  of  his 
Country  when  giving  this  last  and  crowning  proof  of  his 
fidelity  to  the  cause  of  which  he  had  been  for  so  many 
years  the  honored  champion  and  defender.  Mr.  Clay  was 
evidently  conscious  of  a  peculiar  inspiration  at  that  inter 
esting  moment.  His  face  was  radiant  with  pure  and  lofty 
emotion.  His  eyes  blazed  with  excitement.  His  noble 
form  seemed  absolutely  to  swell  beyond  its  natural  dimen 
sions.  The  crowd  was  overwhelmingly  impressed,  and 
vociferously  exclaimed,  "A  speech  !  A  speech  !  "  Thus 
called  upon,  Mr.  Clay  proceeded  to  address  those  assem 
bled,  for  a  few  moments,  and  in  his  most  happy  manner. 
He  rapidly  reviewed  the  existing  condition  of  the  coun 
try,  pointed  out  the  evils  of  sectional  jealousy  and  extreme 
party  prejudice,  spoke  of  the  value  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  Union,  referred  to  the  noble  example  of  Wash 
ington  and  his  compeers  of  the  Revolutionary  era,  and 
concluded  in  these  words : 

4 'However  others  may  act,  I  am  iirmly  resolved  henceforward  to 
hold  no  political  fellowship  with  an}7  man  or  set  of  men  who  do  not 
love  their  country  more  than  party,  and  who  are  not  willing  to  make 
any  sacrifice  and  incur  any  hazard  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union 
of  these  States  and  the  institutions  of  freedom  established  by  our  fore 
fathers.'* 

I  have  only  to  add  that  had  there  been  one  uch  man 
in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  as  Henry  Clay  in 
1860-'61  there  would,  I  feel  sure,  have  been  no  civil  war. 
Had  Mr.  Clay  himself  been  then  living,  the  same  high 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  31 

toned  patriotism  and  consummate  statesmanship  which 
had  been  so  efficiently  instrumental  in  1819,  in  1882,  and 
in  1850,  in  preserving  the  Republic  from  the  horrors  of 
civil  butchery,  and  from  the  yet  greater  evils  sure  to  re 
sult  from  disunion,  whenever  that  shall  be  effected,  would 
have  been  seen  to  achieve  a  still  grander  triumph  of  prin 
ciple  over  the  embodied  factionists  of  that  period,  from 
whose  ill  counsels  such  unmeasured  evils  have  been  seen 
to  flow. 


32  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  IV. 

GENERAL    HAYNE — MR.    WEBSTER — GENERAL    JACKSON — MICA- 
JAH  TARVER — WILEY  CONNER. 

It  chanced  that  the  once  famous  General  Hayne,  of 
South  Carolina,  visited  the  State  of  Mississippi  in  the 
winter  of  1838  and  1839.  He  came  to  the  Southwest  on 
a  most  important  expedition.  He  wished  to  call  public 
attention  to  the  scheme,  which  had  heen  a  short  time 
before  projected,  of  connecting  the  city  of  Memphis  with 
Charleston  by  railway — about  twelve  years  before  the 
ve/y  first  railway  ever  constructed  west  of  the  Alleghany 
was  commenced.  This  was  to  extend  from  the  head  to 
the  foot  of  the  Muscle  shoals  of  the  Tennessee  river.  The 
first  meeting  held  for  the  consideration  of  this  project 
took  place  in  my  professional  office,  in  the  town  of  Tus- 
cumbia,  where  I  then  resided,  and  the  well-known  and 
truly  meritorious  Micajah  Tarver  presided  on  the  occa 
sion.  A  large  subscription  for  stock  was  immediately 
taken  up,  and  I  had  the  honor  of  being  appointed  to  draw 
up  a  petition  to  the  Alabama  Legislature  for  a  charter  of 
the  company  about  to  be  formed,  as  well  as  to  frame  the 
charter  itself,  which  double  task  I  performed  with  more 
than  ordinary  pleasure.  A  very  enterprising  and  worthy 
man,  Colonel  David  Deshler,  then  a  merchant  of  Tuscum- 
bia,  I  recollect,  brought  on  from  New  York,  a  short  time 
before,  a  wooden  railway  model,  which  he  exhibited  to 
the  meeting  above  alluded  to,  and  made  a  most  masterly 
explanation  of  the  modus  operandi  of  this  new  vehicle  of 
commerce  and  travel.  Colonel  Deshler  was  father  to  the 
General  Deshler  who  distinguished  himself  so  much  in  the 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  33 

recent  unhappy  civil  war.  The  Colonel  died  about  two 
years  since  in  Tuscumbia,  leaving  behind  him,  as  I  un 
derstand,  a  very  large  estate.  The  railway  from  the  head 
to  the  foot  of  the  Muscle  shoals  proved  decidedly  a  losing 
concern.  Many  of  the  original  stockholders  were  sub 
jected  to  great  pecuniary  losses  thereby,  and  but  for  the 
purchase  of  this  railway  afterward  by  the  Memphis  and 
Charleston  Company,  afterward  established,  it  would 
doubtless  long  since  have  been  abandoned.  General  Hayne 
had  visited  Nashville  and  several  other  places  of  note  before 
he  reached  Jackson,  the  capital  of  Mississippi,  and  had 
everywhere  upon  his  route  awakened  much  interest  in  the 
great  undertaking  of  which  he  was  such  an  eloquent  and 
effective  champion.  The  Legislature  ot  Mississippi  was 
in  session  when  he  arrived,  and  a  committee  of  three  was 
appointed  by  that  body  to  call  upon  him  at  his  lodgings 
and  invite  him  to  address  the  Senate  and  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  then  in  joint  session.  This  committee,  of 
which  I  had  the  honor  to  be  a  member,  lost  no  time  in  the 
performance  ol  the  honorable  duty  assigned  them,  and, 
having  escorted  this  distinguished  personage  to  the  cap- 
itol,  General  Hayne  proceeded  to  address  the  large  con. 
course  assembled  in  a  manner  so  impressive  and  captivat 
ing  that  I  am  sure  no  one  who  was  then  present  has  ever 
ceased  since  to  look  back  to  that  occasion  with  feelings  of 
unqualified  satisfaction  and  delight. 

General  Hayne  wns  of  medium  stature,  well  shaped, 
and  of  a  singularly  animated  and  mercurial  aspect.  His 
eyes  were  very  bright  and  dazzling,  and  of  a  light  hazel 
color.  His  countenance  wore  a  very  mild  and  benignant 
expression.  His  face  was  cleanly  shaven,  and  he  was  ele 
gantly  but  unostentatiously  attired.  His  manners  were 
marked  with  a  graceful  and  winning  affability  which  I 
have  never  seen  surpassed  When  he  mounted  the  stand 
3  R 


34  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

to  address  the  audience,  and  for  a  moment  stood  quietly 
surveying  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  assembled,  he  seemed 
at  once  to  awaken  a  sympathy  in  all  hearts,  and  to  en 
kindle  a  lively  curiosity,  also,  to  hear  all  he  had  to  say. 
I  had  myself  feared  that  the  topics  which  he  had  to  dis 
cuss,  being  chiefly  those  of  mere  economic  detail,  his 
powers  as  an  orator  would  find  no  sufficient  scope  for 
their  display,  and  that  he  might  occasionally  prove  dry 
and  uninteresting  in  the  presentation  of  some  of  the  mat 
ters  to  which  he  was  seeking  to  attract  public  regard. 
But  never  did  I  make  a  greater  mistake.  The  address, 
though  of  considerable  length,  was  accompanied  with  such 
extraordinary  charmfulness  of  delivery  that  no  one  could 
possibly  have  grown  tired  of  listening  to  it,  and  I  am  con 
fident  that  all  who  drank  in  his  soft,  mellifluous  tones, 
and  beheld  his  manly  and  impressive  gesticulation,  would 
have  felt  grateful  to  him  had  he  continued  his  discourse 
for  full  two  hours  longer.  I  had  heard  a  great  deal  be 
fore  thus  meeting  General  Hay  no  of  the  attractiveness  of 
his  voice  and  manner,  but  no  description  which  I  had  be 
fore  received  of  him  at  all  came  up  to  the  splendid  reality 
of  which  I  was  now  a  delighted  witness.  When  the  com 
mittee  escorted  him  back  to  his  room,  I  took  the  liberty 
of  asking  him  to  tell  me  how  he  had  been  able  to  acquire 
such  wondrous  facility  of  expression,  and  such  remark 
able  capacity  for  keeping  alive  the  interest  of  his  audience. 
He  answered  rny  queries  without  any  false  modesty,  and 
without  a  particle  of  vulgar  egotism,  very  nearly  in  these 
words : 

"  Yon  give  me  credit  for  much  facility  of  expression,  and  for  having 
successfully  cultivated  to  some  extent  the  graces  of  rhetorical  display. 
I  shall  surprise  you,  I  do  not  doubt,  when  I  tell  yon  that  at  sixteen 
years  of  age  [  was  an  awkward  stammering  boy.  I  desired  to  become 
a  lawyer,  and  was  even  then  assiduously  preparing  myself  for  the 
legal  profession.  A  youth  more  ambitious  of  oratorical  distinction 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  35 

than  I  was  I  am  sure  has  never  lived.  But  my  Mends  and  relatives  all 
joined  in  urging  me  to  give  up  the  hope  of  future  renown  as  a  speaker 
and  to  devote  myself  to  some  other  calling-  better  adapted  to  the  slen- 
derness  of  my  faculties.  They  told  me  that  it  was  absurd  and  ridicu 
lous  in  one  who  stuttered  so  abominably  to  think  of  becoming  even  a 
tolerable  pleader  of  causes.  This  mortified  me  much,  but  I  did  not 
desist  from  the  struggle  in  which  I  had  so  zealously  enlisted.  I  thought 
much  of  the  difficulties  of  a  similar  kind  which  Demosthenes  was  re 
ported  to  have  encountered,  and  of  the  successful  efforts  made  by  him. 
to  overcome  them.  I  diligently  studied  the  tones  of  my  own  voice.  I 
essayed  to  find  out  all  the  mysteries  which  belonged  to  our  complex 
vocal  organ.  I  labored  from  hour  to  hour,  and  from  minute  to  minute, 
to  ascertain  the  precise  nature  of  those  particular  impediments  to  a 
clear  and  easy  articulation  under  which  I  was  suffering.  F  pondered 
this  subject  by  day,  and  it  was  with  me  the  prompter  of  many  a  pain 
ful  and  of  many  a  pleasing  drearn.  At  length  the  light  broke  in  upon 
me.  I  found  that  I  had  never  before  learned  to  talk ;  that  I  had  been 
suffered  all  my  life  to  jabber  confused  and  unintelligible  sounds.  I 
learned  at  last  that  to  speak,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  was  to  ar 
ticulate  distinct  vocables  ;  that  the  ardor  of  my  temperament  was  such, 
as  well  as  my  ambition,  to  communicate  ideas  to  the  minds  of  others, 
that  1  had  heretofore  unduly  hurried  my  syllables  upon  each  other,  or 
rather  tried  to  do  so,  so  that  the  vocal  sounds  became  inextricably  in 
termingled  and  hopelessly  indistinct,  and  that  every  fresh  effort  had 
involved  me  in  greater  and  greater  embarrassments.  I  came  at  last  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  first  step  I  had  to  take  in  order  to  acquire  the 
complete  control  of  my  voice  was  to  put  my  own  feelings  under  the 
strictest  discipline,  to  habituate  myself  to  sober  thought,  and  to  learn 
the  indispensable  art  of  keeping  the  fervent  sensibilities  with  which  I 
was  endowed  under  thorough  command,  and  that  after  I  had  done 
these  things  in  an  effectual  manner  it  would  then  be  indispensable  that 
I  should  strive  to  enunciate  each  syllable  that  I  had  to  utter  clearly 
and  emphatically  before  attempting  to  emit  a  succeeding  one,  and  soon 
until  the  whole  sentence,  whether  long  or  short,  should  have  passed  forth 
from  my  lips.  By  pursuing  this  course  rigidly  for  a  considerable  period 
of  time,  I  iioped  that  at  last  I  might  accomplish  the  great  object  which 
I  was  seeking  to  attain,  and  that  I  should  become  able  to  speak  fluently 
and  without  pain  either  to  myself  or  to  others.  1  practiced  constantly 
upon  these  ideas,  and  if  1  now  speak  with  ease,  as  you  seem  to  think,  I 
am  indebted  for  my  power  in  this  respect  to  the  labors  which  I  have  just 
described.  This  is  so  certainly  the  case  that  [  assure  you  were  I  even 
now  to  attempt  to  express  mysolf  in  the  rapid  manner  which  has  be- 


36  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

come  so  common  of  late  among  young  men  of  fiery  temperament  and 
of  unchaste ned  moral  organism,  I  should  inevitably  stutter  just  as  dis 
gustingly  as  I  did  forty  years  ago." 

After  this  interesting  recital  bad  closed  I  ventured  to 
refer  to  the  great  oratorical  contest  between  himself  and 
Mr.  Webster,  in  the  National  Senate,  now  nearly  a  half 
century  ago,  and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  Mr.  Web 
ster's  powers  as  a  speaker.  He  at  once  answered  that  he 
supposed  him,  upon  the  whole,  to  be  the  most  consum 
mate  orator  of  either  ancient  or  modern  times  ;  that  his 
ability  as  a  reasoner,  he  was  confident,  had  never  been 
exceeded ;  that  his  imagination  was  as  fertile  and  vigor 
ous  as  that  of  Milton  or  Homer ;  that  his  humor  was  both 
exquisite  and  abundant ;  that  his  knowledge  was  unlim 
ited  ;  that  he  had  the  most  happy  command  of  his  temper 
at  all  times,  and  that  on  certain  groat  occasions  he  had  ex 
celled  all  the  speakers  that  had  ever  lived,  not  excepting 
either  Demosthenes  or  Cicero.  I  then  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  Mr.  Webster's  manner.  He  replied  that  it  was 
always  grand  and  impressive;  that  lie  had  never  heard 
him  utter  a  word  in  a  careless  or  vulgar  style;  that  he 
seemed  never  to  forget  his  own  dignity,  or  to  be  unmind 
ful  of  the  character  and  feelings  of  others ;  and  that  when 
thoroughly  excited  the  sublime  grandeur  of  his  thoughts 
and  language  derived  great  additional  potency  from  his 
noble  and  soul-moving  enunciation  and  his  few  but  im 
pressive  gestures.  I  then  said  to  him:  ltBut,  General 
Ilayne,  every  one  in  the  South  admired  your  speeches  on 
the  occasion  to  which  you  have  been  referring  more  than 
they  did  those  of  Mr.  Webster,  and  it  is  said  that  General 
Jackson  was  so  much  delighted  with  the  first  of  your 
speeches  in  the  Senate  that  he  had  it  printed  on  satin  for 
distribution  among  his  friends  at  a  distance.  Was  this 
so?"  To  which  he  replied:  ui  believe  this  to  have  been 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  37 

true ;  the  people  of  the  South  generally  approved  my 
speech  because  they  believed  that  I  had  been  defending  in 
it  their  own  local  interests  and  honor.  General  Jackson 
admired  it  because  he  tliQught  I  had  successfully  vindi 
cated  the  Democratic  cause,  to  the  support  of  which  his 
own  life  had  been  devoted.  But  you  know  that  in  a  few 
months  thereafter,  when  our  nullification  experiment  had 
developed  its  gigantic  proportions,  and  after  the  memora 
ble  contest  had  occurred  in  the  Senate  between  Mr.  Cal- 
houn  and  my  ancient  antagonist  Mr.  Webster,  General 
Jackson  became  so  great  an  admirer  of  the  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  that  he  thought  seriously  of  making  him 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
upon  the  decease  of  the  venerated  Marshall.  Be  assured, 
sir,"  he  continued,  "I  never  for  one  moment  have  thought 
of  comparing  that  oration  of  mine,  made  in  direct  assail- 
ment  of  Mr.  Webster  and  the  Federal  party  of  old,  and  to 
the  defense  of  which  I  had  thought  proper  to  challenge 
him,  to  his  great  arid  unequaled  speech  in  reply  thereto ; 
though  it  is  certain  that,  for  a  day  or  two,  it  seemed  to 
many  that  I  had  come  oif  victor  in  the  contest." 

While  General  Hayne  thus  generously  expressed  him 
self,  I  could  not  help  recurring  to  the  celebrated  contest 
between  Demosthenes  and  Eschines,  so  familiar  to  all,  the 
latter  of  whom,  when  driven  into  banishment  by  the  su 
perior  eloquence  of  his  great  rival,  is  reported  to  have 
established  a  school  of  rhetoric  at  Rhodes,  where,  on  one 
occasion,  when  he  had  been  declaiming:  in  the  hearing;  of 

o  o 

his  pupils  that  very  speech  of  Demosthenes  which  had 
consigned  himself  to  exile,  upon  their  expressing  to  him 
their  warm  admiration  of  it  as  a  specimen  of  oratorical 
power,  he  magnanimously  exclaimed :  "  If  you  are  pleased 
with  this  speech  when  only  hearing  it  recited  by  me,  how 
much  more  warmly  you  would  have  approved  it  had  you 
heard  it  thundered  forth  by  Demosthenes  himself!" 


38  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

Having  referred  to  the  railway  between  the  head  and 
foot  of  the  Muscle  shoals  of  the  Tennessee  river,  and  hav 
ing  incidentally  mentioned  that  its  construction  brought 
serious  pecuniary  losses  upon  many  of  those  who  had  par 
ticipated  therein,  I  am  tempted  to  relate  an  anecdote  or 
two  somewhat  germain  to  the  matters  already  discussed, 
and  which  may  a  little  compensate  for  the  dullness  of 
much  of  that  which  has  been  already  here  written. 

At  the  time  that  this  same  railway  was  projected  there 
was  a  newspaper  then  published  in  the  town  of  Courtland, 
in  North  Alabama,  by  a  good  and  worthy  citizen  called 
Wiley  Conner.  This  paper  was  called  the  Courtland 
Herald,  and  below  these  words  every  day  came  forth,  in 
freshly  printed  characters,  a  well-known  couplet  from 
Cowper's  <k  Task,"  descriptive  of  the  English  postboy  : 

"  Here  comes  the  herald  of  a  noisy  world. 
New*  from  all  nations  lumbering  at  liis  back." 

I  deemed  it  expedient  to  get  Conner  to  publish  a  series 
of  articles  in  his  paper  in  support  of  the  railway  project, 
and  as  he  had  not  made  himself  well  acquainted  with  the 
subject  1  wrote  most  of  the  first  articles  published  my 
self.  He  then  kept  up  tin-  tin-  \vry  handsomely,  indeed, 
for  some  time,  and  did,  I  do  not  doubt,  a  good  deal,  in  one 
way  or  other,  to  further  the  cause  he  had  so  much  at 
heart.  I  well  recollect  that  in  one  of  the  numbers  of  his 
remarkable  gazette  he  went  far  toward  demonstrating 
that  the  wood  of  the  cedar  tree,  so  well  adapted  to  rail 
way  purposes,  was  far  more  lasting  than  copper. 

Removing  from  Alabama  a  year  or  two  after,  I  had  no 
occasion  to  visit  Courtland  again  until  the  year  183fj.  I 
then  found  the  village  in  a  greatly  dilapidated  condition. 
It  did  not  seem  to  me  altogether  proper  that  I  should 
leave  town  without  calling  to  inquire  after  my  ancient 
friend,  so  I  went  in  the  direction  of  the  house  within 


CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES.  39 

which  the  Courtland  Herald  had  been  printed  in  former 
days  ;  but  what  was  my  surprise,  on  entering  the  portals 
of  that  edifice,  to  find  scattered  about  the  floor  of  the 
ante-room  large  masses  of  type,  and  on  penetrating  the 
room  where  I  had  held  so  many  grave  consultations  of 
yore  upon  questions  of  almost  all  grades  and  complexions, 
lo !  I  beheld  an  aged  gentleman,  with  spectacles  on  nose, 
in  a  broiling  summer's  day,  sitting  up,  with  his  feet  stuck 
under  his  posteriors,  apparently  sewing  for  his  life,  while 
the  perspiration  was  pouring  from  his  brows  in  the  most 
copious  streams.  So  soon  as  I  could  get  myself  recognized, 
I  exclaimed  :  "  Good  heavens  !  Mr.  Conner,  what  are  you 
doing?  and  what  has  become  of  the  Courtland  Herald?" 
To  which  he  responded,  in  most  lugubrious  tones  : 

"Oh,  my  dear  friend,  you  have  ruined  me  !  You  persuaded  me, 
nine  years  ago,  to  devote  my  columns  to  the  establishment  of  the  rail 
way  that  runs  through  this  now  wasted  and  depopulated  village.  As 
soon  as  the  accursed  railway  got  into  operation,  it  drew  oft'  all  the  trade 
from  Courtland  to  other  more  commercial  points,  destroyed  the  value 
of  my  little  property  here,  and,  as  it  was  quite  as  convenient  for  my 
neighbors  in  Courtland  to  subscribe  for  newpapers  printed  elsewhere, 
and  of  larger  dimensions,  and  to  print  their  advertisements  therein 
also,  why,  you  see,  they  all  abandoned  me,  left  the  poor  Courtland 
Herald  high  and  dry,  and  drove  me  back  to  my  original  vocation,  in 
which  you  now  see  me  engaged.'' 

I  was  really  distressed  in  mind  at  seeing  the  condition 
of  this  public-spirited  editor,  and  after  offering  him  what 
consolation  I  could,  I  invited  him  to  remove,  bag  and 
baggage,  to  the  State  of  Mississippi ;  which,  on  doing,  he 
soon  became  restored  to  his  former  comfortable  and  pros 
perous  circumstances. 

Wiley  Conner  was  in  some  particulars  certainly  quite  a 
remarkable  man.  He  was  in  person  about  five  feet  two 
inches  in  height,  of  a  fresh  and* rubicund  countenance; 
had  what  Shakspeare  calls  "  a  ftfir,  round  belly,"  which 


40  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

was  doubtless, too,  often  "with  good  capon  lined;"  with 
legs  ludicrously  short  in  proportion  to  the  longitude  of 
his  body  ;  and  having  a  long  and  fine  suit  of  curling  hair, 
plaited  up  carefully,  and  attached  to  the  apex  of  his  bul 
let-shaped  cranium  with  a  large  horn  comb.  Having  no 
beard  on  his  face,  and  having  never  married,  these  cir 
cumstances,  together  with  that  of  his  ringlets  being  kept 
in  place  by  means  of  the  pectinal  appendage  already  men 
tioned,  induced  some  of  his  cotemporary  brothers  of  the 
quill,  when  he  did  anything  which  gave  them  special 
offense,  to  dub  him  "  Madame  Conner,"  by  which  appella 
tion  he  was,  in  fact,  generally  distinguished,  save  by  those 
who  chose,  from  a  consideration  of  the  peculiar  manner  in 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  waddle  about  the  streets,  to 
call  him  the  "yarn  potato." 

Though  Conner  was  no  statesman,  and  did  not  pretend 
to  see  very  deeply  into  futurity  in  regard  to  the  rise  and 
fall  of  political  parties,  yet  he  was,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
most  faithful  chroniclers  of  the  weather  that  the  Tennes 
see  valley  has  ever  boasted,  for  never  did  a  huge  snow  fall 
that  he  did  not  instantly  record  the  fact  in  his  immortal 
columns;  if  the  weather  was  very  cold  he  did  not  fail  to 
note  that  important  occurrence;  if  it  was  very  hot  he  did 
the  self-same  thing;  if  a  deluging  rain  caused  Big  Xance 
(the  creek  that  held  the  village  of  Courtland  in  its  watery 
embrace)  to  overflow  and  sweep  away  the  neighboring 
fences,  he  was  all  in  a  pucker  of  dissatisfaction  ;  and 
whenever  the  exsiccating  rays  of  a  summer's  sun  threat 
ened  to  dry  up  the  precious  streamlet  he  did  not  fail  to 
write  article  after  article  intended  to  prompt  his  sluggish 
neighbors  to  stop  as  soon  as  possible  the  subterraneous 
outlet  which  he  asserted  was  constantly  draining  off  the 
waters  of  this  second  Sefmander  into  the  bed  of  the  Ten 
nessee  river. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  41 

Never  did  this  once-famed  editorial  monitor  suffer  a 
marriage  to  take  place  or  a  noted  death  to  occur  without 
saying  something  in  the  Herald  thereupon,  either  wise  or 
witty,  commendatory  or  humorous.  He  proposed  to  make 
the  Evening  Star,  of  New  York,  his  model,  and  often  have 
I  seen  him  weep  with  ecstasy  over  articles  written,  as  he 
said,  "  in  the  Mordecai  Noah  style,"  and  which  it  hugely 
delighted  him  to  read  aloud  whenever  he  could  get  around 
him  a  company  of  willing  listeners.  His  last  exploit  in 
this  line  which  I  now  recollect  was  as  follows  :  A  most  ven- 
erahle  citizen,  by  the  name  of  Harper,  told  Conner,  on  a 
certain  Friday  morning,  that  he  was  about  to  be  married 
to  a  most  charming  widow  in  a  neighboring  village.  The 
marriage  was  to  come  off  that  very  evening.  Conner  an 
nounced  the  marriage  in  his  paper  next  morning  in  a  very 
flourishing  and  imposing  manner.  The  expected  groom 
attended  a  great  muster  on  Saturday,  when  his  acquaint 
ances  all  came  forward  to  congratulate  him  upon  the  for 
tunate  connubial  alliance  he  had  just  effected.  Now,  un 
fortunately,  this  same  marriage  had  not  taken  place  as 
expected,  some  terms  of  settlement  being  insisted  upon 
by  the  friends  of  the  lady,  to  which  the  aged  candidate 
for  matrimony  could  not  be  induced  to  accede.  Harper, 
in  order  to  save  himself  from  further  congratulation  over 
an  incident  of  good  fortune  which,  in  point  of  fact,  had 
not  been  realized,  flew  to  Conner  and  required  a  contra 
diction  to  be  made  of  his  former  publication.  This  Con 
ner  could  not  injustice  refuse  to  do,  but  being  a  veritable 
wit,  and  somewhat  of  a  wag  with  all,  he  accompanied  the 
correction  with  a  number  of  over-savory  Scotch  anecdotes 
of  a  strictly  illustrative  character,  and  made  the  desired 
publication  under  the  significant  caption  of  "  A  Flash  in 
the  Pan!"  Upon  this  the  friends  of  the  lady  grew 
furious,  and  justly  so ;  and  one  of  them,  a  gentleman  of 


42  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

much  refinement  and  chivalry,  who  was,  by-the-by,  very 
well  known  to  me  personally,  dashed  up  to  the  town  of 
Courtlancl  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  Conner  to  immedi 
ate  responsibility.  Conner,  hearing  of  his  arrival  at  the 
hotel,  and  divining  his  intention,  plunged  into  the  somber 
depths  of  his  cellar,  where  he  remained  safely  esconced 
until  informed,  as  he  was  in  a  few  clays,  that  the  coast 
was  clear.  He  got  out  just  in  time  to  announce  the  mar 
riage  of  Harper  to  another  lady  of  much  more  suitable 
age,  of  which  he  made  due  notification  in  the  Herald^ 
under  the  very  appropriate  heading,  u  No  Flash  this 
Time !" 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  43 


REMINISCENCE  V. 

GENERAL  JAMES  HAMILTON — MR.  CALHOUN — GOVERNOR  QUIT- 
MAN JEFF.  DAVIS — GENERAL  LAMAR — PRESIDENT  BUR 
NETT — NICHOLAS  BIDDLE — COLONEL  WHITE. 

I  have  heretofore  made  mention  of  a  distinguished  chief 
of  the  extreme  States  school  of  South  Carolina,  General 
Robert  Y.  Ilayne.  I  shall  now  briefly  notice  another 
gentleman  of  the  same  political  class,  General  James 
Hamilton.  This  latter  gentleman  I  knew  well,  and  with 
him  had  much  familiar  intercourse  for  more  than  twenty 
years.  General  Hamilton  is  known  to  have  sprung  from 
a  family  of  great  respectability,  and  very  early  in  life  to 
have  established  a  high  reputation  for  courage,  generosity, 
and  all  the  more  heroic  virtues.  He  was  for  several  years 
during  the  days  of  his  young  and  lusty  manhood  in  the 
United  States  army,  lie  resigned  his  military  commis 
sion,  as  I  have  understood,  a  short  time  subsequent  to  his 
marriage,  and  retired  to  the  large  estate  acquired  with 
his  wife,  where,  for  some  years,  he  gave  evidence  of  many 
high  qualities,  both  of  head  and  heart,  and  was  afterward 
elected  to  sf  seat  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress,  where 
he  ultimately  attained  considerable  distinction.  He  de 
livered  in  that  body  a  number  of  brilliant  and  effective 
speeches,  which  attracted  at  the  time  much  public  notice. 
He  took  a  very  conspicuous  position  in  the  nullification 
struggle  of  1832,  and  if  war  between  the  General  Govern 
ment  and  South.  Carolina  had  then  occurred,  it  is  well 
understood  that  the  extremists  of  South  Carolina  would 
greatly  have  relied  for  their  defense,  against  an  invading 
Federal  force,  upon  the  military  experience  of  General 


44  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Hamilton,  his  indomitable  fearlessness,  and  his  remarka 
ble  capacity  for  managing  and  controlling  men.  It  is  for 
tunate  for  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  and  for  the  fame 
of  their  honored  executive  chief  at  that  trying  moment, 
that  the  menaced  collision  was  averted,  and  that  the 
shedding  of  American  blood  upon  American  soil,  by  the 
fratricidal  hands  of  armed  American  soldiers,  was  post 
poned  for  nearly  thirty  years.  General  Hamilton  is 
known  by  others  as  well  as  by  myself  to  have  afterward 
become  far  more  conservative  in  his  opinions  and  senti 
ments,  and  in  the  crisis  of  1850  he  both  wrote  and  coun 
seled  zealously  and  efficiently  in  the  interests  of  peace  and 
concord.  I  had  myself  a  long  and  formal  interview  with 
him,  in  1850,  on  Capitol  Hill,  in  this  city,  some  weeks 
subsequent  to  Mr.  Calhoun's  lamented  decease,  and  1  can 
say  with  truth  that  from  no  man  did  I  receive  higher  evi 
dences  of  sympathy  in  the  attitude  which  I  then  occu 
pied,  and  that  from  the  lips  of  no  man  did  I  obtain  wiser 
and  more  wholesome  admonition.  I  well  remember  that 
General  Hamilton,  in  the  autumn  of  that  very  year,  pub 
lished  a  letter  in  which  he  emphatically  asserted  that  Mr. 
Calhoun,  if  he  had  lived  long  enough  to  behold  the  peril 
ous  crisis  of  1851,  Avould  not  have  been  found  supporting 
the  reckless  and  dangerous  policy  of  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr. 
Quitman  in  Mississippi,  and  that  of  Mr.  McDonald  and 
others  in  Georgia,  all  of  whom  were  then  struggling  to 
unite  all  the  States  of  the  South  in  the  co-operative  move 
ment,  as  it  was  called,  which  had  been  boldly  initiated  in 
South  Carolina,  and  which  looked  directly  to  disunion,  in 
case  the  compromise  measures  of  that  period  should  be 
persevered  in  by  the  Government  of  the  Union. 

I  was  first  introduced  to  General  Hamilton  in  the  spring 
of  1839,  in  the  city  of  Houston,  which  was  then  the  Tex 
an  capital,  whither  I  had  gone  on  a  mingled  trip  of  pleas- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  45 

ure  and  business.  The  affairs  of  Texas  were  then  in  a 
feeble  and  tottering  condition.  To  be  sure,  the  battle  of 
San  Jacinto  had  been  fought,  and  immortal  glory  had 
been  acquired  by  the  seven  or  eight  hundred  gallant 
men  who  there  defeated  Santa  Anna  and  his  numerous 
army  of  disciplined  Mexican  troops  ;  but  Texas  was  still 
menaced  with  invasion  by  Mexico.  She  was  yet  exceed 
ingly  deficient  in  moneyed  resources,  and  the  established 
governments  of  the  earth  seemed  reluctant  to  give  her 
recognition  as  a  sovereign  and  independent  Power.  Gen 
eral  Sam  Houston  had  now  been  succeeded  in  the  office  of 
President  by  General  Mirabeau  B.  Larnar,  who  had  called 
around  him  a  safe  and  trustworthy  Cabinet,  all  of  whom 
were  personally  known  to  me,  and  greatly  respected. 
Judge  Burnett  was  Secretary  of  State,  General  Johnson 
was  Secretary  of  War,  General  Richard  C.  Dunlap  was 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  General  Memucan  Hunt 
was  Secretary  of  the  .Navy.  A  day  or  two  after  my  ar 
rival  at  the  Texan  capital,  General  Hamilton  reached 
that  place,  also,  in  company  with  ex-Governor  Butler,  of 
South  Carolina,  and  Colonel  White,  late  of  Florida,  but 
then  a  resident  of  NQW  Orleans.  General  Hamilton  had 
been  employed  by  the  Texan  government  to  conduct  cer 
tain  fiscal  ne  ;otiations  in  its  behalf,  in  which  it  was  un 
derstood  that  he  had  been  eminently  successful.  He  was  in 
vited  to  a  noble  banquet  immediately  on  his  arrival,  which 
was  served  up  to  a  numerous  concourse  of  congenial  and 
accomplished  guests  in  the  lower  rooms  of  the  large  build 
ing  in  Houston  then  used  as  a  State-house.  A  merrier  or 
more  agreeable  party  I  never  witnessed.  General  Hamil 
ton,  on  being  toasted,  delivered  a  most  interesting  and  en 
couraging  address,  and  other  gentlemen  spoke  also,  who 
were,  apparently,  listened  to  with  much  attention  and 
pleasure.  Several  other  dinners  were  afterward  given  to 


46  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

General  Hamilton  and  the  friends  who  had  accompanied 
him  to  Texas,  at  which  I  had  the  honor  to  be  present, 
and  where  I  met  many  gentlemen  not  unknown  to  fame, 
among  whom  I  can  not  refrain  from  mentioning  specially 
here,  General  Thomas  J.  Rusk,  afterward  so  prominent  and 
useful  as  a  member  of  the  national  Senate.  I  hope  not  to  in 
cur  the  charge  of  egotism  by  mentioning  that  while  sojourn 
ing  there  for  a  few  days  at  the  Texan  capitol,  I  had  the 
honor  to  be  invited,  by  President  Lamar  and  his  Cabi 
net,  to  write  the  history  of  the  Texan  struggle  for  independ 
ence,  the  materials  for  which  work  I  collected  within  the 
next  six  months,  and  the  volumes  containing  which  I 
completed  in  about-  six  months  more.  The  subject  was, 
indeed,  one  of  deep  interest;  the  materials  supplied  me 
by  public  spirited  citizens  of  Texas  were  both  rich  and 
abundant;  but  the  book  itself,  written  in  great  haste,  and 
amid  numerous  other  absorbing  and  perplexing  avocations, 
I  have  long  recognized  in  point  of  literary  execution  as 
exceedingly  imperfect.  The  chief  honor  heretofore  con 
ferred  upon  my  poor  volumes  consists  in  the  fact  that 
"  Texas  and  the  Texans ;  or,  The  Advance  of  the  Anglo- 
Americans  to  the  far  Southwest,"  had  the  fortune  to  be 
freely  cited  a  few  years  after  its  appearance  by  Judge 
Woodbury,  and  other  members  of  the  American  Senate, 
as  unquestionable  historic  authority  during  the  discus 
sion  of  the  graveand  deeply  interesting  question,  whether 
the  "  Single-Starred  Republic  "  should  be  admitted  into 
the  Federal  Union. 

I  may  as  well  observe  here  that  while  I  was  remaining 
in  Philadelphia,  during  the  winter  of  184:0-'41,  for  the 
purpose  of  superintending  the  publication  of  this  work,  I 
met  with  many  excellent  and  accomplished  gentlemen, 
who  have  been  ever  since  retained  by  me  in  respectful 
and  affectionate  memory,  among  whom  I  should  not  omit 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  47 

to  mention  specially  G-eorge  M.  Dallas,  Charles  J.  and 
Joseph  R.  Ingersoll,  Mr.  Rush,  the  former  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  under  Mr.  Adams,  and  afterward  Minister  Pleni 
potentiary  to  England;   the  celebrated  Dr.  Chapman,  a 
native  of  my  own  native  county  of  Virginia;  Dr.  Dungli- 
son,  Dr.  Mitchell,  John  Paul  Brown,  Commodore  Biddle, 
Mr.  Edward  A.  Ingraham,  and  Nicholas  Biddle.     In  ref 
erence  to  the  latter  gentleman  I  will  here  offer  a  few  brief 
remarks.     I  saw  him  now  for  the  first  time,  and  under 
decidedly  unfavorable  ci  rcumstances.     His  bank,  or  rather 
the  United  States  Bank  of  Pennsylvania,  had  just  failed  ; 
in  fact,  it  suspended  payment  on  the  day  of  my  arrival  in 
Philadelphia.     Popular  excitement  against  him  and  his 
bank  was  running  very  high,  and  his  life  was  even  said 
to  be  in  danger.     Still  he  walked  about  the  streets  of  the 
Quaker  City  calm  and  composed,  and  did  not  seem  in  the 
least  degree  to  quail  before  the  tempest  which  was  raging 
round  him.     He  attended  the  Wistar  parties  regularly, 
and  "his  face  belied  him  if  his  soul  was  sad."     He  visited 
me  cordially  at  the  boarding-house  where  I  was  staying, 
and  I  saw  him  repeatedly  at  his  own  hospitable  mansion 
and  elsewhere.     He  was  certainly  a  man  of  very  intellec 
tual  appearance  and  of  the  utmost  refinement  of  manners. 
His  conversational  powers  were  very  extraordinary,  and 
he  uniformly  talked  with  me  in  a  frank,  unreserved,  and 
entertaining  manner.     He  was  aware  that  I  had  written 
the  volumes  then  emanating  from  the  press  chiefly  with  a 
view  of  expediting,  as  far  as  I  could,  the  admission  of 
Texas,  of  which  measure  he  was  an  ardent  advocate.     In 
the  appendix  to  "  Texas  and  the  Texans  "  will  be  found  a 
valuable  and  instructive  correspondence  between  Mr.  Bid- 
die  and  Mr.  Jaudon,  his  fiscal  agent  abroad,  in  which  the 
question  of  Texan  admission  is  discussed  most  ably.    This 
correspondence  was  politely  handed  to  me  by  Mr.  Biddle 
for  publication. 


48  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Nicholas  Biddle  was  truly  a  man  of  most  liberal  and 
enlightened  views.     He  did  not  at  all  doubt  that  in  com 
ing  time,  and  perhaps  in  a  very  few  years,  all  the  North 
American  continent,  including  the  islands  which  bespan 
gle  the  surface  of  the  Mexican  gulf,  would  be  brought 
under  the  wise  and  beneficent  protection  of  the  "  Stars 
and  Stripes."     He  advocated  most  earnestly  the  immedi 
ate  admission  of  Texas,  and  contended,  as  I  thought  at 
the  time  and  still  think,  with  irresistible  cogency,  that 
the  fabric  of  the  Union  would  grow  stronger  and  stronger 
in  proportion  as  the  local  governmental  props  placed  un 
der  it  for  its  support  should  be  multiplied.     He  freely 
ridiculed  the  idea  that  Texas  was  too  distant  from  Wash 
ington  to  be  conveniently  controlled  and  regulated  by  the 
central  department  of  our  governmental  system,  maintain 
ing  that  the  most  remote  position  of  this  delightful  region 
was,  for  all  practical   purposes,  as  near  to   Washington 
then,  by  reason  of  the  improved  facilities  for  travel,  as 
Massachusetts  had  been  to  Philadelphia  in  the  days  of  his 
own  boyhood.     In  illustration  of  this  view  of  the  matter 
he  related  a  short  but  striking  anecdote.     He  said  that  he 
remembered  that  John  Adams,  then  either  President  or 
Vice  President,  reached  his  father's  house  in  Philadelphia 
just  before  the  commencement  of  the  session  of  Congress, 
and  that  he  remarked  pleasantly  to  his  host  that  he  sup 
posed  that  he  had  himself  just  made  the  journey  from 
Quincy,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston,  to  Philadelphia 
in  less  time  than  any  public  man  had  ever  before  done ; 
"for,"  said  he,  "I  have  performed  this  trip  in  seventeen 
days,  all  the  while  traveling  in  my  sulky."     Mr.  Biddle 
seemed  much  grieved  and  astonished  that  any  one  should 
doubt  the  expediency  of  our  acquiring  as  early    as  we 
honorably  and  safely  could  Cuba,  San  Domingo,  Jamaica, 
Porto    Rico,  and    all    the   adjacent    isles,  alleging,  as    I 
thought,  with  great  force,  that  until  the  Mexican  gull 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  49 

should  1)0  made  our  Marc  dausum  all  the  commerce  of  the 
Western  States  and  Territories,  floating  down  the  Missis 
sippi  and  its  tributaries,  would  be  constantly  exposed  to 
foreign  molestation. 

v> 

I  do  not  doubt  that  from  these  interviews  with  Mr. 
Biddlc  I  derived  certain  views  expressed  by  me  in  the  na 
tional  Senate,  in  the'winter  of  1847-'48,  when  I  contended 
that,  having  at  that  time  made  a  complete  conquest  of 
Mexico — holding  even  her  capital  then  in  our  hands— in 
stead  of  aiming  to  make  a  treaty  with  any  of  the  disorderly 
and  lawless  factions  then  warring  on  Mexican  soil  for  as 
cendency,  we  should  at  once  proceed  to  proclaim  the  fact 
that  the  Republic  of  Mexico  had  drawn  to  an  end,  and 
then  go  on  without  delay  to  Americanize  the  whole  of 
this  fair  and  inviting  region  by  permeating  it  in  every 
direction  with  railways,  establishing  post  offices  and  post 
roads  over  its  whole  surface,  and  opening  it,  on  the  most 
liberal  and  inviting  terms,  to  enterprising  settlers  from 
our  own  country. 

We  left  General  Hamilton,  Colonel  White,  and  others 
at  the  Texan  capital.  There  they  only  staid  a  few  days 
more,  when  some  fifteen  or  twenty  of  us  set  sail  from  the 
port  of  Galveston  to  "New  Orleans.  We  traveled  in  a 
steamship  which  had  been  recently  purchased  by  General 
Hamilton  for  the  Texan  Government,  and  in  which  he 
had  just  before  navigated  the  stormy  waves  of  the  bay 
rolling  between  Galveston  and  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi  river.  This  vessel  had  been  called  the  Charleston. 
General  Hamilton,  whilst  we  Avere  returning  on  it,  one 
day  at  dinner,  over  several  bottles  of  excellent  Madeira, 
christened  it  anew  by  the  name  of  the  Zavallo,  in  hotior 
of  a  Mexican  chief  of  that  name  very  favorably  known 
as  a  friend  of  Texas  in  her  late  struggle  for  independence. 
Some  fifteen  years  after  this  General  Hamilton  was 
5  R 


50  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

wrecked  on  board  a  steamship  bound  from  Galveston  to 
Berwick's  bay,  and  thus  ended  the  varied  and  romantic 
career  of  a  warm-hearted,  enterprising,  and  truly  chival 
rous  Southern  gentlemen. 

There  is  one  other  particular  which  I  should  here  notice 
in  connection  with  this  same  trip  to  Texas.  I  found  on 
my  arrival  there  a  French  count,  by  the  name  of  Saligny, 
or  l)c  Saligny.  He  was  a  guest  of  my  friend  General 
Hunt  during  my  own  stay  at  his  house,  and  was  a  very 
handsome  little  fellow;  indeed,  he  was  thought  by  some 
to  resemble  the  portraits  of  the  first  Napoleon.  An  on 
(fit,  too,  prevailed  that  he  had  distinguished  himself  a 
good  deal  during  those  fierce  conilicts  which  raised  Louis 
Philippe  to  the  French  throne.  He  had  been  secretary 
of  legation  en  attendant  to  M.  Sartiges  at  Washington, 
and  had  been  sent  to  Texas,  as  he  said,  by  the  French 
Government  to  inspect  the  condition  of  that  young  Re 
public.  The  Texan  President,  whilst  I  was  at  Houston, 
was  examining  into  the  expediency  of  sending  Colonel 
White  as  an  accredited  minister  of  Texas  to  France ;  and 
this  appointment  Colonel  White  would  certainly  have  re 
ceived  but  for  the  sudden  and  somewhat  abrupt  interpo 
sition  of  the  Count  de  Saligny,  who  represented  that  the 
gentleman  named  would  not  be  acceptable  as  Envoy  to  his 
royal  master.  The  vivacious  French  count  traveled  to 
New  Orleans  in  company  with  Colonel  White,  General 
Hamilton,  and  others,  including  myself,  and  he  and  I  had 
the  honor,  the  clay  after  our  arrival  in  the  Crescent  City, 
of  taking  dinner  together  at  the  house  of  that  high-bred 
and  noble-hearted  gentleman,  whose  hopes  of  diplomatic 
honor  he  had  so  cruelly  nipped  in  the  bud,  and  of  enjoy 
ing  at  the  same  time  his  own  most  learned  and  instruc 
tive  conversation  whilst  receiving  the  bland  and  courtly 
attentions  of  his  most  beauteous  and  accomplished  lady. 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES  51 

Colonel  White  was  a  native  of  Orange  county,  Virginia, 
had  represented  Florida  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
in  the  years  1826  and  1827,  and  perhaps  for  several  sessions 
thereafter.  He  was  a  ripe  scholar,  a  profound  lawyer,  and 
an  accomplished  man  of  the  world.  I  first  saw  him  and 
his  famed  helpmate  at  the  Saratoga  Springs  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1825.  He  was  then  buoyant  and  full  of  hope,  and 
seemed  to  imagine  that  he  had  a  long  life  of  usefulness 
and  felicity  before  him.  I  recollect  that  he  was  then  just 
from  Boston,  where  he  had  listened  with  rapture  to  Mr. 
Webster's  first  monument  speech,  and  had  attended  the 
grand  Jete  given  the  night  after  at  the  house  of  New  Eng 
land's  sagest  statesman  to  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  then 
on  his  travels  in  this  country.  White  stated  to  me  that 
he  had  seen  James  Barbour,  of  Virginia,  at  this  same 
Websterian  party,  standing  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  en 
circled  by  the  Boston  wits  and  savants,  all  listening  with 
evident  amusement  and  admiration  to  his  rich  and  varied 
conversation,  and  to  his  choice  and  well-told  anecdotes. 
I  have  seen  James  Barbour  often  ;  a  nobler  and  more  ma 
jestic  looking  person  I  never  expect  to  behold.  He  was  tall, 
straight,  and  of  the  most  symmetrical  proportions.  lie 
had  a  high  and  expanded  forehead,  large  and  lustrous 
eyes  ;  his  eyebrows,  black  and  bushy,  were  most  proudly 
and  imperiously  arched ;  his  nose  was  aquiline,  and  as 
expressive  as  could  have  been  that  of  Julius  Caesar  him 
self.  His  erudition  was  limited,  for  his  early  opportuni 
ties  had  been  slender.  He  always  talked,  though,  with 
animation  and  earnestness  ;•  he  ever  looked  the  complete 
and  polished  gentleman  ;  had  a  clear,  resounding  voice  in 
debate,  and  was  always  listened  to  with  respectful  atten 
tion.  He  had  less  of  party  rancor  about  him  than  most 
public  men  of  his  time  ;  never  indulged  in  coarse  and  Bil- 
denunciation  ;  and  when  he  died  I  am  sure  he 


52  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

had  as  few  personal  enemies  as  any  man  on  the  American 
continent.  He  commenced  his  political  career  as  a  zeal- 
ons  supporter  of  the  Virginia  resolutions  of  1798-'90, 
afterward  accepted  Mr.  Madison's  gall-extracting  solution 
of  them,  and  ended  his  political  life  as  a  sturdy  and  im 
movable  Whig  of  the  Clay  and  Webster  stamp. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  53 

REMINISCENCE  No.  VI. 

MR.    VAN   BUREN — MR.    TYLER — GEN.    HARRISON — C^ESARISM. 

The  nomination  of  Martin  Van  Buren  to  the  Presi 
dency,  in  1836,  seemed  to  call  for  uncommon  efforts  to 
secure  his  election.  The  popularity  of  this  gentleman 
outside  the  State  of  New  York  had  not  yet  been  subjec 
ted  to  any  decisive  test,  and  he  had  been  so  virulently 
and  persistently-  assailed  by  some  of  the  leading  Whig 
statesmen,  as  well  as  by  numerous  editors  of  political 
newpapers  of  the  Whig  persuasion  in  different  parts  of 
the  Union,  that  it  was  conjectured  by  some  of  his  warm 
est  friends  and  admirers  that  his  elevation  to  the  Presi 
dency  was  an  event  by  no  means  certain  to  occur.  To  be 
sure,  he  was  openly  and  powerfully  sustained  by  General 
Jackson,  whose  influence  was  now  at  its  height,  and  who 
did  not  attempt  to  conceal  the  conviction  which  rested 
upon  his  mind  that  the  great  political  reforms  which  he 
had  been  zealously  conducting  for  the  eight  years  of  his 
memorable  administration  would  depend  for  their  con 
summation  mainly  upon  the  triumph  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  pending  Presidential  contest.  It  should  be 
here  mentioned  that  the  opponents  of  Mr.  Van  Buren 
had  unwittingly  enhanced  his  popularity  very  much  by 
an  over-rancorous  and  unsparing  assailment  of  him ;  a 
result  which  may  be  always  confidently  anticipated  as  the 
effect  of  such  a  course  of  proceeding  so  long  as  the  pop 
ular  masses  of  our  country  shall  themselves  remain  pure 
and  uncorrupted  and  capable  of  discriminating  justly  be 
tween  the  bold  and  needful  arraignment  of  great  public 
malefactors,  and  the  attempts,  so  often  witnessed  in  all 


54-  CASKKT    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

republics,  to   undermine  and  dishonor  men   of  genuine 
merit  and  of  eminent  public  services  by  mean  and  illib 
eral  charges  of  delinquencies  not  capable  of  being  satis 
factorily  established   in  proof.     The   fatuity  manifested 
often  by  the  shallow  zealots  of  faction  in  their  endeavors 
to  crush  men  of  known  probity  and  ability  by  the  prefer 
ring  of  accusations  of  a    manifestly  frivolous   and    un 
founded  character,  alone  with  a  view  to  the  cherished 
purposes  of  faction,  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
moral  phcnomenons  of  the  present  age  ;  and,  inasmuch  as 
such   paltry  and    ill-judged    attacks    never  fail    to  recoil 
sooner  or  later  upon  those  who  employ  them,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  manifest  proof  both  of  intellectual  weakness 
and  a  want  of  elevated  self-respect  to  exhibit  the  least 
chagrin  or  irritation  under  such  commendatory  denuncia 
tion.     Such,  I  am  sure,  were  the  views  entertained  by 
Van  Buren  touching  this  matter,  as  I  know  not  only  from 
his  own  repeated  declarations,  but  from  a  very  close  ob 
servance  of  his  demeanor  and  language  in  public    life. 
His  career  as  an  active  and  leading  politician  had  been 
already  somewhat  prolonged;  he  had  been  a  conspicuous 
member  of  the  Legislature  of  2s"ew  York,  Governor  of  the 
State,  a  United  States  Senator,  Secretary  of  State  under 
General  Jackson,  and  a  minister  abroad,  in  all  of  which 
positions  he  had  shown  much  ability ;  yet  to  very  many 
of  the  people  of  the  Southwestern  States  he  was  not  very 
familiarly  known,  and  among  them  he  had  been  cruelly 
traduced  by  the  celebrated  George  Poindexter  and  others 
of  his  class,  who  were  accustomed  to  speak  of  him  as  "the 
Political  lago,"  "the  Little  Magician  of  Kindcrhook," 
and  in  the  use  of  like  appellatives.     It  was  judged   in 
Mississippi  to  be  expedient  that  some  one  should  be  de 
puted  to  Albany — where  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  then  tem 
porarily  sojourning — for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  some 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  55 

explanation  from  his  own  lips  elucidatory  of  certain  dis 
puted  points  in  his  history.  Being  solicited  to  go  upoij. 
this  mission,  I  cheerfully  undertook  it,  and  proceeded  to 
New  York  without  any  delay  save  that  which  was  neces 
sarily  incident  to  my  passing  through  Virginia  on  the 
way,  where  I  wished  to  spend  a  day  or  two  with  several 
dear  relatives  and  friends. 

On  reaching  the  city  of  Norfolk,  I  took  passage  on  a 
comfortable  steamer  bound  to  Richmond.  I  found  upon 
the  boat  a  number  of  well-dressed  gentlemen  and  ladies, 
all  of  whom  were  wholly  unknown  to  me.  In  the  course 
of  an  hour  or  two  I  chanced  to  get  into  a  conversation 
with  two  gentlemen  who  reported  themselves  to  be  elec 
tors  on  the  Harrison  Presidential  ticket,  and  what  was  at 
first  a  calm  and  courteous  colloquy  between  us  upon  the 
politics  of  the  time  became  very  soon,  as  in  such  cases  is 
usual,  a  boisterous  and  excited  controversial  dispute,  not 
possible,  indeed,  to  be  in  the  least  degree  profitable  to  any 
human  being.  So  soon  as  this  scene  had  drawn  to  an  end, 
I  was  again  accosted  by  one  of  the  gentlemen  with  whom 
I  had  been  disputing,  and  asked  by  him  whether  I  was 
acquainted  with  John  Tyler.  On  my  responding  in  the 
negative,  he  pointed  out  to  me  a  gentleman,  apparently 
a  little  past  the  meridian  of  life,  very  plainly  dressed,  who 
was  at  the  time  in  an  animated  conversation  with  a  fine 
looking  and  elegantly  appareled  lady.  I  surveyed  this 
scene  for  a  moment  or  two,  when  my  civil  compagnon  da, 
voyage  inquired  of  me  whether  I  had  any  objections  to 
being  introduced  to  John  Tyler.  u]N"one  in  the  world," 
I  responded.  "I  have  long  admired  his  character  very 
highly  and  shall  feel  it  to  be  quite  an  honor  to  be  presented 
to  him."  This  accordingly  took  place  at  once,  and  I 
found  myself  in  a  minute  or  two  more  engaged  in  one  of 
the  most  agreeable  conversations  I  had  ever  enjoyed.  Mr. 


•>  CASKET    OF    KKMIMSCKN'CES. 

Tyler  met  me  in  an  exceedingly  bland  and  cordial  man 
ner,  and  at  once  opened  himself  to  me  in  the  frankest  and 
most  unreserved  style  upon  many  of  the  most  attractive 
topics  of  the  time,  and  very  soon  entered  upon  a  calm  and 
dignified  discussion  of  several  of  the  most  contested  points 
of  political  controversy  then  occupying  the  public  mind; 
and,  without  demanding  directly  the  expression  of  my 
own  opinions  thereupon,  he  gave  me  an  opportunity  of 
dissenting  from  him  should  I  choose  to  do  so.  Being 
really  very  anxious  to  hear  him  talk,  and  being  altogether 
unwilling  to  change  the  tone  of  our  conversation  by  dis 
puting  the  propositions  so  pleasantly  enunciated  by  him, 
I  cautiously  avoided  making  any  issue  with  him  what 
ever;  but,  on  the  contrary,  every  now  and  then  took  oc 
casion,  as  far  as  I  could  do  so  without  seeming  adulation, 
to  refer,  in  a  kind  and  complaisant  manner,  to  certain  of 
his  own  political  acts  which  I  had  sincerely  approved,  and 
especially  to  his  then  recent  manly  resignation  of  the  seat 
which  he  had  held  in  the  National  Senate  when  he  found 
himself  unable  to  comply  with  the  Legislative  instruc 
tions  which  had  been  sent  to  him  from  Richmond,  with 
out  a  violation  of  his  own  sense  of  propriety.  After  this 
interchange  of  ideas  had  proceeded  for  nearly  an  hour, 
Air.  Tyler  suddenly  rose  up  and,  assuming  a  most  genial 
smile,  invited  the  company  to  join  him  in  a  glass  of  wine. 
While  we  were  in  the  act  of  enjoying  the  inspiring  liquid 
supplied  to  us  from  the  bar,  Air.  Tyler  waggishly  turned 
to  me  and  said:  "I  have  a  little  joke  which  I  must  tell  you 
upon  these  two  electoral  friends  of  ours.  Just  before  you 
were  introduced  to  me  these  two  gentlemen  came  to  me 
and  said:  '  Af r.  Tyler,  we  have  just  encountered  one  of 
the  fiercest  Van  Burcn  men  we  ever  saw.  He  has  said 
many  things  which  were  not  a  little  annoying  to  us,  and 
we  have  to  ask  of  vou  to  take  him  in  hand  and  relieve 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  57 

his  mind  from  sonic  of  the  strange  delusions  under  which 
it  is  now  laboring.'  So,  at  their  instance,  I  sought  to 
draw  you  into  discussion,  and  I  feel  gratiiied  that  in  this 
way  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  making  your  acquaint 
ance."  An  hour  or  two  after  this,  Mr.  Tyler  called  me 
to  him,  on  the  right  hand  side  of  the  boat,  and  said,'  point 
ing  to  a  fine  old  building  near  the  bank  of  the  river: 
"There  lived  and  died  Benjamin  Harrison,  so  much  dis 
tinguished  in  the  early  history  of  the  Ancient  Dominion, 
who,  you  know,  was  probably  a  descendant  of  the  Har 
rison,  who  was  one  of  the  associates  of  Cromwell,  lie 
was  the  largest  man  in  the  old  Congress  of  the  Confeder 
ation,  and  when  John  Hancock  was  elected  President  of 
that  body  he  bore  him  to  the  chair  in  his  arms.  In  that 
house,  too,  was  born  William  Henry  Harrison,  one  of  the 
three  candidates  for  the  Presidency  now  in  the  field.  I 
had  the  honor  to  be  born  in  the  same  little  county  in 
which  that  venerable  mansion  is  situated.  !N"ow,  would 
it  not  be  rather  a  curious  coincidence  were  General  Har 
rison  to  be  elected  President,  as  I  really  believe  he  will  be, 
and  I  should  be  elected  Vice  President,  upon  the  White 
ticket,  an  event  which  I  hold  not  to  be  at  all  improbable, 
both  of  us  being  thus  natives  of  this  small  county  in 
Virginia?",  Though  the  coincidence  suggested  did  not 
arise  in  1836,  yet  four  years  after,  as  all  remember,  Gen 
eral  William  Henry  Harrison  and  John  Tyler  were  chosen 
to  the  Presidency  and  Vice  Presidency  of  the  Republic 
upon  the  same  ticket ! 

I  must  say  of  Mr.  Tyler  that  both  in  our  intercourse 
upon  the  steamer  and  in  that  which  took  place  afterward 
between  us  on  our  arrival  at  Richmond,  he  evinced  as 
much  of  good  nature  and  of  high-bred  politeness  as  of  in 
tellectual  resources.  He  was  really  one  of  the  most  genial 
and  captivating  men  I  ever  encountered  ;  there  was  not  a 


58  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

particle  of  hauteur  or  assumption  in  his  aspect  or  de 
meanor;  he  seemed  to  be  eminently  frank  and  uncon 
strained  in  his  conversation;  had  a  clear  and  ringing 
voice,  possessed  a  ready  and  insinuating  smile,  and,  in 
fact,  few  could  hold  converse  with  him  for  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  even  without  feeling  strongly  impressed  with  his 
many  high  qualities,  nor  without  feeling  more  or  less  in 
clined  to  sympathize  with  his  fortunes.  When  we  reached 
the  hotel  in  Richmond  Mr.  Tyler  proposed  to  me  to  go 
with  him  to  call  upon  the  venerable  Thomas  Ritchie,  ot 
the  Richmond  Enquirer,  and  John  Ilampden  Pleasants,  of 
the  Richmond  Whig.  Finding  neither  of  these  gentle 
men  at  home  we  proceeded  to  the  Capitol  of  the  State, 
and  thence  to  the  Governor's  house.  On  reaching  the 
latter  he  said  :  "  Here  is  the  house  in  which  I  undertook 
to  play  Governor  in  Virginia  a  few  years  ago.  I  was 
very  reluctant  to  hold  the  office,  but  my  political  friends 
would  compel  me  to  do  so,  though  I  told  them  I  was  too 
poor  to  become  Governor,  my  private  fortune  not  being 
sufficient  to  defray  the  expenses  incident  to  this  high  sta 
tion,  and  the  Governor's  salary  amounting  to  but  an  incon 
siderable  sum.  On  my  inauguration  as  Governor  I  in 
vited  the  members  of  the  Legislature  of  both  parties  to 
partake  of  a  banquet  which  I  had  caused  to  Jbe  prepared 
for  them.  They  came  and  found  a  plentiful  supply  of  Old 
Virginia  ham  upon  the  table,  accompanied  with  a  huge 
mass  of  well-baked  corn-bread,  together  with  a  copious 
supply  of  Monongahela  whisky ;  to  all  which  I  gave 
them  a  cordial  welcome,  hoping  in  this  way  to  convey  to 
them  a  significant  hint  that  if  they  expected  their  Gov 
ernor  to  live  like  a  gentleman,  and  in  a  manner  compatL 
ble  with  the  dignity  of  our  noble  old  State,  they  must 
provide  for  him  liberally  in  the  matter  of  salary.'1 

When  I  reached  Albany  I  found  Mr.  VanBuren  iu  ex- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  59 

cellent  health  and  spirits.  He  met  me  very  cordially, 
took  me  to  several  interesting  places  in  the  city,  and  in 
vited  me  to  dine  with  him  at  5  o'clock  that  day,  having 
meanwhile  conversed  with  me  freely  in  regard  to  the  ob- 
jects  of  my  trip.  At  dinner  I  met  several  gentlemen  of 
eminence,  all  of  whom  are  now  numbered  with  the  dead, 
including  our  delightful  host  himself;  these  were  Gov 
ernor  Marcy,  Senator  Tallmadge,  Chancellor  "Walworth, 
and  John  Van  Buren.  A  more  agreeable  repast  I  have 
never  enjoyed.  Mr.  Van  Buren  was,  perhaps,  as  polished 
and  captivating  a  person  in  the  social  circle  as  America 
has  ever  known,  and  on  this  occasion  he  was  as  agreeable  as 
I  ever  knew  him  to  be  in  after  life,  when  I  met  him  often 
and  heard  him  converse  without  reserve  upon  all  the 
questions  which  then  occupied  the  public  mind.  I  have 
long  been  of  opinion  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  possessed  abili 
ties  far  superior  to  the  estimation  formed  ot  him  by  most 
of  his  cotemporaries.  His  mind  was  at  once  vigorous 
and  comprehensive;  his  judgment  upon  the  public  ques 
tions  with  which  he  had  to  deal  was  singularly  accurate 
and  discriminating;  his  knowledge  of  men  was  most  pro 
found;  he  often  evinced  a  most  sagacious  and  penetrating 
foresight  as  to  the  future,  and  was  a  man  of  the  most 
imperturbable  spirit  I  have  ever  known.  No  one,  I  am 
certain,  has  ever  exhibited  greater  refinement  of  manners, 
and  his  personal  integrity  was  far  beyond  suspicion. 
When  he  was,  at  different  times,  a  member  of  legislative 

'  O 

bodies,  he  seldom  spoke  at  great  length,  and  never  in  a 
declamatory  style.  He  expressed  to  me,  when  in  Albany, 
in  1836,  his  decided  aversion  to  this  style  of  speaking  in 
the  National  Senate,  in  which  body  he  thought  that  the 
conversational  tone  and  manner  ought  to  prevail  almost 
exclusively.  It  is  wonderful  to  what  a  degree  he  had  dis 
ciplined  his  own  sensibilities,  so  as  to  make  them  almost 


60  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

impervious  to  attacks  made  upon  his  feelings  or  character, 
even  in  his  own  presence.      I  recollect  of  once  asking 
him  if  it  could  be  indeed  true  that  he  had  sat  in  the 
President's  chair  of  the  Senate  perfectly  unmoved,  (as  had 
been  represented,)  and  with  a  serene  smile  upon  his  visage, 
when  Mr.  Clay  was  delivering  one  of  the  most  powerful 
of  his  philippics,  and  in  which  he  had  been  more  than 
once  himself  referred  to  with  the  most  terrible  severity; 
when  he  answered:  "Eloquent  as  certainly  was  that  speech 
to  which  you  refer,  all-potential  as  were  Mr.  Clay's  voice 
and  manner,  bitter  as  was  his  denunciation,  and  caustic 
as  was  his  ridicule,  I  am  not  aware  that  the  listening  to 
his  electrical  utterances  had  any  disturbing  effect  upon 
my  feelings,  and  I  suppose   that  my  appearance  at   the 
time   must   have  been  in  harmony   with    my  emotions. 
While  Mr.  Clay  was  thundering  forth  that  magnificent 
address— which  certainly  seemed  to  have  much  effect  upon 
most  of  those  in   hearing   of  it— the    idea  was    passing 
through  my  mind  that  this  speech  would  be  of  much  ad 
vantage  to  me;  that  it  would  tend  greatly  to  strengthen 
the  attachment  of  my  political  friends;  would  warm  up 
their  sympathies  in  my  behalf,  and  concentrate  their  re 
gard;  while  even  the  more  generous  of  my  opponents,  in 
cluding,  perchance,  Mr.  Clay  himself  in  a  cooler  and  less 
excited    moment,   would  feel    that   I   had    been   greatly 
wronged  by  such  wholesale  and  spiteful  denunciation.     I 
do  not  know  whether  or  not  I  smiled  on  that  occasion,  as 
you  have  been  told  that  I  did,  and  as  it  would  have  been 
quite  natural  that  I  should  have  done  with  the  particular 
view  which  I  took  of  the  matter;  but  it  ia  certain  that 
when  I  descended  from  the  chair  on  the  adjournment  of 
the  Senate,  and  met  Mr.  Clay,  I  spoke  to  him  with  my 
accustomed  civility  and  kindnes,  and  without  harboring 
a  sentiment  of  hostility  toward  him." 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  61 

After  the  decease  of  Mr.  Van  Bureu  a  volume  emanated 
from  the  press  of  New  York  which  I  read  with  great  in 
terest  and  instruction.  This  book  contains  the  views 
which  its  distinguished  author  entertained  upon  govern 
ment  and  the  history  of  political  parties  in  the  United 
States  from  the  earliest  period  of  our  annals  as  a  nation. 
It  is  to  he  deeply  regretted  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  did  not 
live  to  complete  this  remarkable  work,  as  indeed  that 
portion  of  it  which  seems  to  have  received  the  finishing 
touches  of  his  pen  must  inevitably  claim  for  him  hereafter 
a  very  high  place  among  the  public  writers  of  our  coun 
try.  I  was  particularly  struck  with  what  he  says  so  im 
pressively  in  regard  to  the  wholesome  and  conservative 
influence  of  the  agricultural  class  of  our  population  in  the 
maintenance  of  republican  institutions,  and  in  keeping 
up  among  our  people  simplicity  of  manners  and  freedom 
from  social  contamination.  I  am  persuaded  that  no  one 
can  read  with  due  attention  this  noble  contribution  to 
our  national  literature  without  finding  his  love  of  a  ra- 

S 

tional  and  orderly  freedom  renovated  and  strengthened, 
and  his  hopes  of  the  perpetuity  of  our  noble  institutions 
vivified  and  confirmed.  If  those  who  distrusted  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  motives  while  living,  and  charged  him  with 
the  worst  designs  against  our  republican  system  of  gov 
ernment,  will  do  themselves  the  justice  to  examine  this 
last  solemn  revelation  of  his  thoughts  and  wishes,  I  am 
sure  that  they  will  feel  bound  to  accord  to  him  a  very 
lofty  position  on  the  roll  of  American  statesmen  and 
patriots. 

And  yet  a  distinguished  gentleman  of  the  South,  at 
one  time  much  admired  and  loved  by  certain  political  ex 
tremists  of  that  region,  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years 
ago,  wrote  a  political  novel,  the  significant  title  of  which 
was,  I  believe,  "  The  Partisan  Leader,"  in  which  Mr.  Van 


62  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

-Buren  is  delineated  as  a  monster  capable  of  planning  the 
destruction  of  our  valued  republican  institutions,  and  as- 
pirinj  to  establish  on  American  soil  a  monarchical  des 
potism. 

I  do  not  feel  willing  to  close  my  notice  of  this  wise  and 
pure-minded  man  and  his  valuable  posthumous  volume 
without  stating  my  full  concurrence  in  the  opinion  ex 
pressed  therein  by  him,  that  so  long  as  we  shall  continue 
to  hold  within  our  frontiers  a  numerous,  wide  extended, 
and  enlightened  agricultural  class,  duly  mindful  of  their 
rights,  and  ever  prepared  to  maintain  them,  there  can  be 
no  great  danger  that  an  imperial  despotism  will  ever  be 
seen  to  cast  its  dark  shadow  over  this  continent,  or  that 
any  considerable  number  of  our  people  will  be  anywhere 
found  enunciating  a  desire  for  the  overthrow  of  our  re 
publican  fabric  of  government.  I  feel  bound,  after  having 
gone  thus  far,  to  go  yet  further,  and  declare  the  convic 
tion  which  I  feel,  after  the  fullest  consideration  of  the 
subject  and  the  most  scrutinizing  examination  of  all  the 
signs  of  the  times,  that  no  man  has  yet  been  born  on 
American  soil  so  stupid  and  so  unprincipled  as  to  harbor 
the  insane  and  monstrous  idea  that  to  him  has  been  con 
signed  by  Destiny  the  task  of  building  up  an  imperial 
dynasty,  like  that  either  of  the  first  and  second  of  the 
Cresars  of  the  olden  time,  or  that  of  Napoleon  the  Great 
and  Napoleon  the  Little  of  our  own  age.  It  is  a  gross 
insult  to  the  American  people  to  suppose  them  capable  of 
submitting  to  such  degradation  as  this;  and  it  is  still  a 
grosser  insult,  if  possible,  to  the  principles  of  decency  and 
justice  to  charge  any  living  American  patriot  with  such 
ineffable  treachery  and  baseness. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  G3 


REMINISCENCE  No.  VII. 

GENERAL  JACKSON— WILLIAM  C.  PRESTON— ROBERT  J.  WALKER- 
LOUIS  LEVIN — COLONEL  WHARTON — MARQUIS  OF  MOSCATI. 

The  last  days  of  the  Congress  which  closed  its  session 
on  the  4th  of  March,  1837,  were  in  part  occupied  with 
the  discussion  of  the  Texas  question.  President  Jackson 
had,  some  months  previous,  sent  to  Texas  a  special  gov 
ernmental  agent,  to  examine  carefully  into  the  condition 
of  affairs  in  that  region,  with  a  view  to  enabling  our  own 
Government  to  decide  in  a  safe  and  judicious  manner  the 
interesting  question  whether  it  would  be  proper  to  recog 
nize  the  Texan  R-epublic,  which  had  then  been  recently 
established,  as  an  independent  power.  The  report  of  the 
agent  deputed  thither  had  been  some  days  previous  laid 
before  Congress  by  the  President,  and  many  influential 
members,  both  of  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives,  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  an  act  of  formal 
recognition  should  at  once  take  place,  while  others  opposed 
this  under  the  reasonable  apprehension  that  such  a  course 
of  proceeding  might  involve  our  country  in  a  troublesome 
and  unprofitable  war  with  the  Mexican  Republic.  I  have 
seldom  been  more  entertained  than  I  was  with  the  debates 
which  took  place  in  Congress  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
month  of  February  and  the  beginning  of  the  succeeding 
month  upon  this  subject.  In  the  Senate,  William  C.  Pres_ 
ton,  of  South  Carolina,  and  Robert  J.  Walker,  of  Missis. 
sippi,  were  the  most  active  and  zealous  advocates  of  re 
cognition,  but  a  number  of  other  Senators  took  a  very 
prominent  part  in  support  of  this  movement.  Great  ex 
citement  prevailed  in  regard  to  this  matter,  and  it  was 


04  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

finally  decided  to  be  best  to  go  no  furl  her  in  the  affair  for 
the  present  than  to  co-operate  with  the  President  in  send 
ing  a  Charge  <V Affaires  to  the  capital  of  Texas  ;  and,  witli 
a  view  to  saving  the  incoming  administration  from  what 

O  O 

was  deemed  a  delicate  and  grave  responsibility,  it  was 
judged  most  prudent  that  General  Jackson  should  him 
self  make  the  nomination,  lie  accordingly  sent  in  the 
name  of  Mr.  Labranche,  of  Louisiana,  who,  after  a  rather 
excited  debate  upon  his  merits  and  qualifications,  was  at 
last  confirmed. 

A  day  or  two  after  this  the  two  Texas  plenipotentiaries 
then  in  Washington,  whose  official  character  had  not  been 
at  all  recognized  by  our  Government,  gave  a  grand  dinner 
at  their  rooms,  to  which  some  forty  or  fifty  of  the  leading 
friends  of  the  cause  which  they  represented  were  invited. 
I  remember  that  there  were  present  at  this  dinner  John  C. 
Calhoun,  William  0.  Preston,  Robert  J.  Walker,  John  J. 
Crittenden,  John  Bell,  Waddy  Thompson,  General  Ed- 
mond  P.  Gaines,  and  many  others  of  great  worth  and 
respectability.  There  was  a  most  delightful  interchange 
of  sentiment  on  the  occasion,  and  several  very  brilliant 
oratorical  effusions  were  elicited.  A  few  days  after  I  set 
out  for  my  own  distant  home  in  the  Southwest,  in  com 
pany  with  a  number  of  gentlemen  whose  society  along 
the  journey  helped  much  to  beguile  the  difficulties  and 
annoyances  at  that  time  necessarily  consequent  upon  a 
trip  which  had  to  be  performed  in  a  great  degree  by  stages, 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad  having  then  been  com 
pleted  only  as  far  as  Fredericktown,  Maryland.  Several 
of  our  company,  including  the  two  Texan  Ministers,  Gen 
eral  Memucan  Hunt  and  Colonel  William  II.  Wharton, 
General  Thomas  J.  Green,  of  Texas,  Amos  Kendall,  then 
Postmaster  General,  and  myself,  had  the  pleasure  of  sup 
ping  at  the  house  of  Colonel  Skinner  on  the  evening 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  65 

of  our  arrival  in  Baltimore,  and  to  talk  over,  in  a 
manner  to  me  alike  interesting  and  instructive,  the  reign 
ing  topics  of  the  period.  I  never  saw  Mr.  Kendall  in  so 
gladsome  and  communicative  a  mood,  and  he  from  time 
to  time  discoursed  upon  the  gravest  and  most  important 
questions  of  State  with  a  profundity  and  power  which 
left  a  lasting  impression  on  my  mind. 

We  were  detained  in  Baltimore  until  the  evening  suc 
ceeding  our  arrival  in  that  city,  awaiting  the  setting  forth 
of  the  rail-car  to  Fredericktown,  and  during  the  interme- 

c? 

diate  time  a  scene  occurred  which  I  am  inclined  here  to  re 
late,  at  the  hazard  of  being  regarded  by  some  as  a  little 
frivolous  and  fanciful.  I  was  walking  out  in  the  morning 
about  10  o'clock,  along  one  of  the  most  frequented  streets 
of  the  city,  when  I  unexpectedly  met  a  gentleman  form 
erly  well  known  in  Mississippi,  who  told  me  that  he  was 
on  his  way  to  the  hotel  where  I  was  staying  for  the  pur 
pose  of  inviting  me  and  the  friends  who  were  traveling 
with  me  to  dinner  at  his  house  that  day.  He  told  me 
that  he  would  accept  no  refusal  of  the  invitation  tendered, 
and  that  the  preparations  for  the  banquet  in  prospect  had 
been  already  made.  Of  course  I  accepted  his  hospitable 
offer,  as  did  all  the  others  invited.  He  requested  me  to 
come  to  his  house  an  hour  or  two  before  the  moment  of 
dining  would  arrive,  as  he  wished  to  introduce  me  to  the 
lady  whom  he  had  recently  married  and  with  whom  he 
knew  I  would  be  charmed. 

Before  I  proceed  further  with  my  story  let  me  give  some 
account  of  the  individual  who  was  thus  putting  himself 
to  so  much  trouble  and  expense  for  our  entertainment. 

Louis  Levin  was  a  South  Carolinian  by  birth  ;  by  des 
cent  an  Israelite.  He  was  a  man  of  exceedingly  handsome 
person,  at  least  in  early  life.  His  mind  was  full  of  ac 
tivity  and  sprightliness.  He  possessed  the  most  remark 
able  memory  I  have  ever  known.  His  organ  of  language 

5R 


G6  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

was  so  large  that  his  bright  eyes  positively  almost  seemed 
when  he  chanced  to  he  a  little  excited,  to  be  ready  to  fall 
from  their  sockets.  He  had  been  well  educated  ;  had  read 
much,  and  had  forgotten  nought  that  he  had  ever  learned. 
He  knew  most  of  the  best  English  poetry  by  heart,  and 
sometimes,  when  called  on  to  do  so,  made  recitations  far 
more  impressive  than  any  that  leverheard  from  Macready? 
Booth,  or  Forrest.  His  declamation  of  Collins'  "  Ode  to 
the  Passions  "  was  so  masterly  as  positively  to  electrify 
all  who  witnessed  it.  His  conversational  powers  were 
very  remarkable;  though  he  seemed  in  general  to  talk  far 
more  from  memory  than  as  the  result  of  present  cogitation. 
He  spoke  in  public  with  great  fluency,  but  without  much 
display  of  argumentative  power.  I  am  well  satisfied  that 
he  was  a  person  of  most  kind  and  genial  disposition,  and 
that  if  he  had  possessed  the  treasures  of  the  world  he 
would  have  lavished  them  all  upon  friends  that  he  loved 
or  have  expended  them  in  the  accomplishment  of  objects 
which  chanced  to  be  especially  desirable  to  him.  He  was 
brave  almost  to  a  fault,  and  was  imbued  with  all  the  most 
extreme  notions  of  Southern  chivalry. 

I  saw  this  very  remarkable  person  first  in  the  city  of 
Vicksburg,  about  the  year  1832,  at  which  place  he  had 
but  recently  arrived,  bearing  with  him  letters  of  intro 
duction  to  myself  and  others  from  gentlemen  of  standing 
then  resident  in  the  county  of  Wilkinson,  in  the  same 
State.  He  had  just  emerged  from  a  duel,  fought  with  a 
young  man  about  his  own  age,  who,  after  Levin  had  de 
livered  a  brilliant  4th' of  July  oration,  and  was  receiving 
on  nil  sides  the  commendations  of  those  who  had  heard 
it,  had  laid  claim  to  its  authorship.  Levin  lingered  about 
Vicksburg  for  some  time,  and  there  his  very  impulsive 
nature  got  him  into  several  serious  personal  quarrels,  from 
which  I  had  much  trouble  in  rescuing  him.  At  length 
he  disappeared  from  Yieksburg,  and  in  a  few  weeks  I  hoard 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  67 

of  his  having  made  his  entree  into  the  city  of  Nashville, 
where,  hearing  his  native  State,  South  Carolina,  then  in 
volved  in  the  convulsive  throes  of  Nullification,  fiercely 
denounced,  as  well  as  several  of  her  leading  statesmen  of 
that  period,  by  one  or  two  public  speakers  of  eminence, 
he  boldly  mounted  the  stand  and  poured  forth  such  a 
tirade  of  vindicatory  declamation  as  astounded  all  who 
listened  to  it.  Remaining  then  for  several  weeks  in  Nash 
ville,  he  became  decidedly  a  social  lion,  and  succeeded  in 
captivating  the  heart  of  a  young  lady  of  that  vicinage 
whose  rare  beauty  and  accomplishments  are  yet  spoken 
of  in  Middle  Tennessee  in  language  of  unqualified  com 
mendation,  and  the  virtues  of  whose  heart  are,  if  possi 
ble,  still  more  esteemed  and  praised.  To  this  lady  he  was 
in  a  short  time  married.  But  alas!  she  did  not  long  sur 
vive.  On  her  decease  Levin  journeyed  to  Baltimore,  in 
order  to  procure  a  suitable  monument  for  the  helpmate 
he  had  so  unfortunately  lost.  On  going  one  morning  into 
the  workshop  of  a  worthy  lapidary  of  that  city  for  the 
purpose  of  leaving  directions  with  him  for  the  prepara 
tion  of  a  suitable  tombstone  for  his  departed  wife,  he 
saw  a  beautiful  young  widow  who  had  come  thither  also 
with  a  view  to  performing  the  same  pious  honors  to  the 
memory  of  a  husband  who  had  been  recently  taken  from 
her.  The  coincidence  of  their  corning  together  on  that 
spot  so  unexpectedly  when  having  precisely  similar  mis 
sions  to  execute  struck  them  both  most  forcibly.  In  short, 
they  fell  in  love  at  once,  and  in  a  week  or  two  it  was  gen 
erally  known  in  Baltimore  and  the  surrounding  country 
that  a  marriage  between  these  two  romantic  young  peo- 
pler  would  soon  occur.  It  chanced  that  at  this  time  a 
gentleman  was  spending  a  few  days  in  Baltimore  who  was 
of  some  prominence  in  the  city  of  Nashville,  who,  hearing 
of  the  match  which  was  in  contemplation,  and  not  being 
at  all  prepossessed  in  favor  of  Levin,  deemed  it  his  duty 


68  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

to  interpose  for  the  purpose  of  disappointing  his  connubial 
anticipations.  What  this  gentleman  did  or  said  on  the 
occasion  I  have  never  exactly  known.  It  is  certain, 
though,  that  this  unlocked  for  interference  roused  the  ire 
of  my  inflammable  friend  Levin  very  greatly,  and  that 
he  sought  out  this  personage  without  delay  on  the  street- 
side,  and  made  upon  him  a  tierce  attack,  which  very  de- 
monstrably  indicated  the  deep  sense  of  injury  with  which 
his  own  bosom  was  lacerated.  This  transaction  found 
its  way  very  promptly  into  a  court  of  criminal  cognizance 
where  Levin,  following  up  the  example  of  Cresar,  of  whom 
Quintillian  says :  "  He  spoke  with  the  energy  with  which 
he  fought,"  he  undertook  his  own  defense,  and  so  acquit 
ted  himself  of  this  duty  as  to  awaken  much  admiration 
and  sympathy  among  those  who  listened  to  his  indignant 
philippic.  All  impediments  to  his  marriage  being  thus 
removed,  he  soon  found  himself  the  possessor  of  a  lady 
whose  personal  charms  were  greatly  set  off  and  height 
ened  by  the  large  estate  which  she  held  in  ownership.  In 
a  month  or  two  more  Levin  became  very  favorably  known 
as  a  defender  of  criminals  in  the  courts  of  Baltimore,  and 
I  recollect  that  on  the  very  morning  that  I  had  met  him 
on  the  street-side,  in  the  manner  already  described,  while 
he  and  I  were  holding  brief  converse,  a  gentleman  of  very 
good  exterior  approached  us,  and  was  introduced  to  me 
as  the  son  of  the  renowned  William  Pinckney,  who  com 
mended  Levin  in  the  most  emphatic  manner  on  account 
of  a  very  felicitous  speech  which  he  said  that  he  had 
heard  from  his  lips  in  the  Criminal  Court  the  day 
before. 

I  proceeded  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Levin  so  soon  as  I  could 
make  my  toilet,  and  was  there  presented  to  his  very 
handsome  and  captivating  lady,  the  charms  of  whose  con 
versation  exceeded  even  the  beauty  of  her  person.  She  was 
rather  low  of  stature,  but  elegantly  proportioned;  her  face 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  69 

was  delicate  and  well  formed;  her  expression  was  perfect 
ly  angelic,  and  her  voice  was  as  sweet  and  inspiring  as 
that  of  the  nightingale  itself.  The  company  soon  arrived, 
and  the  few  hoars  which  now  flew  rapidly  away  were 
marked  with  a  joyousness  of  spirit  which  I  am  sure  has 
never  heen  surpassed. 

The  indomitable  Levin  attended  our  party  to  Frederick- 
town  that  evening,  and,  soon  after  reaching  the  hotel 
where  we  were  to  spend  the  night,  he  made  known  to  us 
his  wish  that  we  should  attend  at  his  room,  at  the  hour  of 
9  o'clock,  to  participate  in  a  fare  well  scene  of  good  humor 
and  jollity,  which  he  thought  would  a  little  soften  the 
pain  of  our  expected  separation.  We  attended  accord 
ingly,  and  found  wine  and  hot  whisky-punch  flowing 
there  in  abundance.  Just  before  this  goodly  company 
dispersed  to  their  places  of  rest  an  incident  occurred  which 
impressed  me  very  forcibly  indeed,  and  upon  which  I 
have  often  pleasantly  ruminated  since.  A  young  lawyer 
of  promise  belonging  to  the  Maryland  bar,  whose  name  I 
do  not  choose  to  mention  here,  came  up  to  be  presented 
to  Mr.  Levin.  He  was  a  very  fine-looking  person,  and 
possessed  a  countenance  expressive  both  of  good  nature 
and  intellect.  I  observed  that  during  the  scene  of  intro 
duction  he  evinced  a  blushing  embarrassment  not  at  all 

O 

usual  in  such  cases.  Presently,  in  the  tenderest  accents  of 
interrogation,  he  inquired  after  the  health  of  Mrs.  Levin, 
whom  he  said  he  had  known  previous  to  her  marriage. 
There  was  something  in  the  aspect  and  manner  of  the 
young  gentleman^  as  well  as  in  the  tones  of  his  voice, 
which  irresistibly  conveyed  to  my  mind  at  the  moment 
images  which  prompted  me  to  propound  to  him  at  once, 
in  as  kind  and  delicate  a  manner  as  I  could,  several 
questions,  which,  with  the  tremulous  responses  made  to 
them,  I  will  here  recite:  "Tell  me,  my  dear  sir,  did  not 
you  know  Mrs.  Levin  before  marriage  ?"  "I  did,"  he 


70  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

answered,  with  much  embarrassment.  "Did  you  not 
love  her?"  I  then  asked.  UI  did,"  he  responded,  with  in 
creasing  confusion.  "Did  you  not  at  one  time  expect 
confidently  to  marry  her  ?"  I  asked.  lie  replied  in  the 
affirmative,  and  burst  into  tears. 

This  denouement  was  exceedingly  surprising  to  Levin 
himself,  as  well  as  to  all  others  present,  for  he  assured 
me  that  he  had  never  heard  before  that  his  wife  had  such 
an  acquaintance  in  the  world. 

A  year  or  two  elapsed,  and  I  heard  of  Levin  in  Phila 
delphia,  where  he  was  reported  to  have  taken  an  active 
part  in  those  memorable  riotous  proceedings  which  eventu 
ated  in  the  burning  of  a  Catholic  church  there.  In  pro 
cess  of  time  he  was  taken  up  as  an  anti-Catholic  and  a 
Know-Xothing,  and  sent  to  Congress,  where  I  found  him 
when  I  took  my  seat  in  the  Senate  in  December,  1847.  I 
frequently  visited  him  and  his  amiable  wife  during  my 
stay  in  Washington.  I  resigned  my  place  in  the  Senate, 
and  after  passing  through  many  intermediate  scenes  of 
turmoil  and  strife,  both  in  Mississippi  and  in  California, 
visited  AVashington  again  in  1858.  It  was  soon  made 
known  to  me  that  my  friends  of  former  days  were'in  the 
city,  and  were  boarding  at  one  of  the  hotels.  Here  I 
visited  Mr.  Levin  and  his  wife;  but,  alas  !  what  changes 
had  occurred  in  both  of  them!  Levin,  from  long-con 
tinued  genial  excesses  and  other  causes,  had  become  in 
sane,  and  had,  as  I  was  told,  been  the  occupant  of  a  cell 
in  the  Lunatic  Asylum,  from  which  he  had  but  recently 
emerged.  His  wife  was  a  victim  of  chronic  rheumatism, 
and  had  grown  old  before  her  time.  She  was  still  cbeer- 
ful  in  converse,  and  seemed  not  to  have  altogether  lost 
her  early  vivacity.  She  alluded  to  the  scenes  of  the  past 
in  a  kind  and  graceful  manner,  complained  not  of  the 
calamities  which  had  fallen  upon  her,  and  seemed  to  have 
most  happily  concentrated  all  the  solicitude  of  her  nature 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  71 

upon  a  darling  and  accomplished  daughter  in  whose 
person  and  intellect  she  might  well  recognize  her  own 
early  graces  to  have  been  reproduced.  I  was  asked  by 
these  doting  parents  to  take  charge  of  this  young  lady 
that  very  evening  and  see  her  safely  to  the  great  party 
which  Mr.  Douglas  was  then  giving  to  Mr.  Bancroft.  So, 
indeed,  I  did,  and  soon  after  took  my  leave  of  this  inter 
esting  family,  expecting  never  to  behold  two  of  them 
again  on  this  side  the  tomb.  Sic  transit  gloria  mundi ! 

After  the  usual  discomforts  of  traveling  by  stage,  our 
party  arrived  at  Louisville  without  anything  having 
occurred  to  us  worth  relating.  When  about  to  com 
mence  our  journey  down  the  Ohio  river  on  board  the  fine 
steamer  Sultana,  Colonel  Wharton  came  to  me  with  a 
newspaper  in  his  hand,  which  he  asked  me  to  read.  It 
was  a  number  of  the  National  Gazette,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  gave  an  account  qf  a  very  remarkable  man  who  had 
just  left  London  in  disgust,  and  was  then,  as  was  reported, 
somewhere  in  the  United  States.  This  person  had  made 
his  appearance  in  the  British  metropolis  a  few  years  before 
as  the  Marquis  of  Moscati.  He  had  been  greatly  ridiculed 
in  one  of  the  London  newspapers,  and  been  denounced  as 
an  arrant  humbug,  and  various  reasons  were  given  for  thus 
assailing  him.  He  had  instituted  a  suit  for  libel,  and  the 
case  had  just  been  tried  and  determined  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench.  On  the  trial  much  evidence  pro  and  con 
had  been  adduced,  of  which  only  a  small  portion  can  be 
here  mentioned.  All  the  testimony  of  the  defense  had 
been  introduced  in  support  of  the  plea  of  justification  which 
had  been  put  in.  The  plaintiff  was  proved  at  different 
times  to  have  claimed  the  authorship  of  the  Pelham  novels, 
and  yet  Lord  Lytton,  on  being  brought  forward  to  tes 
tify,  bore  evidence  that  he  was  himself  the  sole  author  of 
the  books  in  question ;  but  he  added  that  he  knew  the 
Marquis  well ;  that  he  was,  as  he  thought,  a  very  amiable 


72  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

and  accomplished  man,  and  that  he  had  repeatedly  em 
ployed  him  to  write  articles  for  his  literary  magazine ; 
that,  though  a  foreigner  hy  birth,  he  was  an  admirable 
English  scholar,  and  was  a  man  of  very  large  attainments 
in  general  science.  It  was  further  proved  that  the  plain 
tiff  .claimed  to  be  the  Marquis  of  Moscati,  of  Italy  ;  and 
yet,  was  it  attested,  in  a  very  clear  and  satisfactory  man 
ner,  that  there  was  no  such  Marquisate  in  Italy  now,  and 
that  there  never  had  been.  It  was  alleged  that  the  plain 
tiff  had  frequently  boasted  that  he  had  fought  ninety-odd 
duels  and  had  shot  every  one  of  his  antagonists  in  the  left 
eye.  It  was  further  deposed  that  he  had  asserted  himself 
to  have  a  genuine  Toledo  blade,  which  he  usually  wore 
wrapped  around  his  person,  but  which  he  could  in  an 
instant  disengage  whenever  he  chose  to  do  so,  and  apply 
it  to  all  the  purposes  for  which  a  sword  is  capable  of  being 
used.  It  was  proved,  in  addition,  that  he  had  claimed  to 
have  occupied  a  prominent  position  in  all  the  great  battles 
fought  by  Napoleon,  and  that  he  had  been  asked  by  the 
usurper,  Don  Miguel,  to  come  to  Portugal  and  take  com 
mand  of  all  his  forces,  which  he  had  emphatically  refused 
to  do  upon  the  ground  of  his  being  a  republican  in  prin 
ciple.  Of  course  the  suit  for  libel  failed,  upon  which  the 
plaintiff  was  described  to  have  left  England  in  great  indig 
nation  for  the  United  States,  alleging  that  the  jury  had 
found  a  false  verdict,  and  that  he  had  been  cruelly  perse 
cuted  in  England  on  account  of  his  political  opinions. 

When  I  had  read  through  the  article,  "Now,"  says 
Colonel  Wharton,  "  this  man  is  actually  on  board  our 
boat.  He  has  been  pointed  out  to  me  in  the  city,  and  I 
have  followed  him  down  to  this  spot."  After  saying  this 
he  asked  me  to  endeavor  to  form  an  acquaintance  with 
him,  and  see  what  sort  of  person  he  was.  And  so  I  did; 
and  approaching  the  well-dressed,  keen-looking,  and  rather 
handsome  little  man,  who  was  avouched  by  Colonel  Whar- 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  73 

ton  to  be  the  person  whose  movements  he  had  been  watch 
ing  so  closely,  I  accosted  him  very  civilly,  told  him  in  a 
kind  way  that  I  knew  very  well  who  he  was,  and,  encour 
aging  him  to  confess  his  actual  identity,  by  assuring  him 
that  his  republican  principles,  so  far  from  raising  up  ene 
mies  to  him  in  this  favored  country  Avould  only  surround 
him  with  friends  who  would  "stick  closer  to  him  than  a 
brother,"  he  finally  donned  the  Marquisate  title  once  more, 
though  he  had  written  his  name  in  the  book  containing 
the  list  of  steamboat  passengers  in  such  a  way  that  all  the 
letters  which  he  had  inscribed  there,  if  pronounced  to 
gether,  could  not  be  made  to  produce  a  single  articulate 
sound.  I  soon  after  introduced  him  to  all  my  friends  on 
board  as  the  veritable  Marquis  of  Moscati,  of  Italy ;  and 
all  the  way  from  Louisville  to  Yicksburg  (at  which  latter 
place  I  left  the  boat  and  took  final  leave  of  the  Marquis, 
who  was  bound  for  New  Orleans)  he  talked  almost  inces 
santly,  told  a  thousand  of  the  most  marvelous  stories  of 
himself  and  his  travels  of  which  it  is  possible  to  conceive, 
all  the  while  giving  abundant  evidence  of  his  learning, 
his  good  breeding,  and  his  kind  and  accommodating  tem 
per.  I  recollect  that  one  of  the  gentlemen  to  whom  I  had 
introduced  him,  Colonel  John  II.  Claiborne,  (then  a  Rep 
resentative  in  Congress  from  the  State  of  Mississippi,)  hav 
ing  informed  the  Marquis  that  he  was  about  to  set  out  on 
a  journey  to  Europe,  that  he  expected  to  visit  Rome  in  a 
month  or  two,  and  that,  as  he  (the  Marquis)  had  professed 
to  be  personally  acquainted  with  that  illustrious  person 
age,  he  would  be  glad  to  get  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
his  Papal  Majesty  ;  he  at  once  complied,  and  wrote  in 
his  behalf  one  of  the  most  polished  and  elegant  Latin 
epistles  I  ever  saw,  which  same  epistle  I  do  not  at  all 
doubt  my  distinguished  Mississippi  friend  yet  has. 


74  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  VIII. 

JOHN    C.     CALIIOUN — JOHN     P.     HALE — ROBERT     J.    WALKER — 
HANGMAN   FOOTE. 

It  was  early  in  the  summer  of  1848  that  an  occurrence 
took  place  in  Washington  city  which  was  productive  of 
great  excitement  at  the  time,  and  which  called  forth,  also, 
much  of  that  sort  of  crimination  and  recrimination  which 
never  fails  to  leave  behind  it  feelings  of  permanent  alien 
ation  and  rancor,  except,  perchance,  in  a  few  hosorns  of  a 
more  generous  mold  than  ordinary  mortals  can  he  expect 
ed  to  possess.  Several  of  the  unfortunate  sons  and 
daughters  of  a  race,  whom  a  selfish  and  semi-barbarous 
policy,  originating  in  the  Old  World,  and  darkening  with 
its  gloomy  shadow  the  beautiful  hills  and  valleys  of  our 
own  natal  land  for  more  than  two  sad  centuries  of  shame 
and  sorrow,  were  prompted  by  that  love  of  freedom,  which 
is  everywhere  inherent  in  the  human  bosom,  to  project  a 
scheme  for  their  own  enfranchisement,  and  it  was  under 
stood  that  some  of  them  had  sought  concealment  and 
refuge  in  the  free  States  of  the  North,  whither  they  had 
been  counseled  to  go  by  several  members  of  Congress  of 
much  and  deserved  prominence  at  the  time.  One  or  two 
of  these  refugees  were  reported  to  have  been  in  the  owner 
ship  of  certain  Southern  members  of  Congress,  who  had 
brought  them  to  Washington,  not  for  sale — -which  would 
have  been  a  palpable  violation  of  the  then  existing  laws 
of  the  District  of  Columbia — but  as  domestic  servants, 
and  deemed  by  them,  at  least,  altogether  essential  to  the 
convenience  and  comfort  of  themselves  and  of  their  fam 
ilies.  A  movement  so  unusual  and  seeming  to  bode  such 
extensive  mischief  in  the  future  may  be  easily  imagined 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  75 

to  have  had  a  very  startling  influence  in  certain  quarters, 
and  much  aggravation  was  supposed  to  have  been  lent  to 
this  affair  by  the  circumstance  that  the  members  of  Con 
gress  from  the  free  States  who  were  charged  to  have 
given  their  countenance  to  this  project  of  elopement  boldly 
confessed  their  own  complicity  therein,  both  in  the  news 
papers  and  in  the  two  houses  of  the  National  Legislature. 
When  I  reached  my  seat  in  the  Senate  on  the  morning 
after  the  flight  of  these  poor  children  of  bondage, had 
occurred,  I  found  Mr.  Calhoun  on  his  feet,  and  denounc 
ing,  with  a  fervid  vehemence  of  tone  and  manner,  very 
unusual  with  this  grave  and  solemn  Senator,  what  he 
depictured  as  a  fearful  outrage  upon  the  whole  body  of 
Southern  slave-holders — an  outrage,  he  said,  which,  if 
tamely  submitted  to,  would  in  a  short  time  bring  about 
the  entire  overthrow  of  a  system  of  labor  alike  indispen 
sable  to  the  enjoyment  and  prosperity  of  the  cotton  and 
tobacco  growing  region  as  to  the  wealth  and  greatness  of 
other  portions  of  the  Republic.  When  he  closed  his 
remarks,  not  without  striking  indications  of  exhaustion 
—he  came  to  my  seat  and  said  :  "  I  now  leave  this  mat 
ter  in  the  hands  of  my  younger  friends  from  the  South.  I 
have  stood  here  long  in  the  front  of  battle,  almost  single- 
handed  and  alone,  defending  the  rights  of  our  slave-hold 
ing  constituents,  and  I  begin  to  feel  it  to  be  high  time 
that  such  men  as  your  colleague,  Mr.  Davis,  and  yourself, 
should  come  forward,  to  my  relief."  This  was  an  appeal 
which  I  found  it  almost  impossible  to  resist,  though  really 
I  had  never  seen  the  time  when  I  would  have  either  gone 
or  sent  an  agent  in  quest  of  a  runaway  slave,  and  had 
always  been  disposed  to  recognize  the  fact  that  one  whose 
acuteness  and  intelligence  were  such  as  to  enable  him  to 
achieve  his  own  deliverance  from  thraldom  might  be  well 
presumed  to  be  altogether  capable  of  enjoying  a  state  of 
freedom  and  of  creditably  maintaining  his  new-found 


76  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

rights.  Waiting  a  few  minutes  for  that  Boanerges  of 
debate,  John  P.  Hale,  of  2^ew  Hampshire,  to  close  a  most 
stormy  and  indignant  harangue,  in  which  his  facility  in 
the  application  of  potential  and  striking  epithets  had  been 
fully  displayed,  I  leaped  to  my  feet  and  made,  as  I  must 
frankly  confess,  under  the  overwhelming  excitement  of 
the  moment,  one  of  the  most  fumy,  rabid,  and  insulting 
speeches  that  has  ever  dishonored  a  grave  and  dignified 
parliamentary  body;  in  which  I  told  Mr.  Hale,  in  plain 
terms,  that  were  he  to  visit  any  thickly-settled  vicinage 
in  Mississippi,  and  there  use  such  language  as  that  which 
he  had  just  uttered,  I  did  not  at  all  doubt  that  he  would 
incur  the  hazard  of  being  strung  up  on  one  of  the  loftiest 
trees  of  the  forest ;  and  that  in  such  case,  should  there  be 
any  want  of  a  willing  executioner,  I  would  ni}'self  turn 
hangman  for  his  benefit.  These  frantic  and  indecent 
words  had  scarcely  been  enunciated  ere  I  become  painfully 
sensible  of  the  stupid  and  unbecoming  nature  of  my  con 
duct,  and  I  would  have  really  given  worlds  to  recall  all 
the  nonsense  I  had  uttered. 

In  less  than  forty-eight  hours  I  received  hundreds  of 
anonymous  letters,  filled  with  the  most  caustic  revilement, 
and  others  inclosing  the  most  hideous  caricatures  of  a 
person  whom  these  same  caricatures  denominated  "  Hang 
man  Foote."  I  positively  writhed  in  agony.  Never  had 
my  self-respect  suffered  such  severe  humiliation.  I  felt 
that  the  fabled  shirt  of  Nessus  was,  actually  enveloping 
my  limbs.  Meanwhile,  the  jolly  and  kind-hearted  Sena 
tor  from  New  Hampshire  and  myself  had  long  since  got 
ten  on  good  terms,  and  I  had  even  taken  up  a  decided 
liking  for  him  on  account  of  his  genial  disposition,  his 
natural  amiableness  of  temper,  and  his  sparkling  vivacity, 
either  in  debate  or  in  conversation.  One  morning,  a 
month  or  two  after  the  scene  which  has  been  just  narrated, 
Mr.  Hale  came  to  my  seat  and  told  me  he  had  a  favor  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  77 

ask  of  me,  which  he  could  not  doubt  that  I  would  grant; 
that  there  was  a  young  man  of  his  acquaintance,  a  native 
of  New  Hampshire,  who  had  been  prosecuted  for  forgery, 
or  some  kindred  offense,  who,  having  been  convicted,  was 
then  in  jail.  He  said  that  the  prosecution  had  taken  place 
under  Federal  jurisdiction,  and  that  the  culprit  w^ould 
have  to  depend  upon  the  clemency  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States  for  pardon.  "Now,"  said  he,  "you  are,  I 
know,  on  most  intimate  terms  with  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  Robert  J.  Walker,  who  will,  I  am  sure,  recom 
mend  this  young  man  for  pardon  on  your  request."  He 
added,  that  though  he  could  not  doubt  that  the  young 
man  referred  to  was  guilty  as  charged,  yet  he  was  satisfied 
that  there  were  extenuating  circumstances  in  the  case  ; 
that  the  offender  was  of  very  tender  years  and  of  a  highly- 
respectable  connection  ;  and  he  then  closed  by  informing 
me  that  his  sister,  a  young  pure-minded,  and  affectionate 
girl,  had  come  on  all  the  way  from  New  England,  hoping 
to  carry  back  with  her  to  the  bosom  of  his  family  her 
erring  but  much-loved  brother.  Mr.  Hale  really  made 
this  out  to  be  almost  a  second  Jenny  Deans  affair,  and 
though,  perchance,  I  did  not  actually  shed  many  tears 
over  his  tender  recital,  it  is  certain  that  I  promptly  under 
took  the  mission  suggested.  Proceeding  at  once  to  Mr. 
Walker  and  the  President,  I  found  no  difficulty  in  obtain 
ing  the  pardon  asked  for,  and  returned  to  the  Capitol  in 
less  than  two  hours  from  the  time  I  had  set  out  on  this 
errand  of  mercy.  On  placing  the  pardon  in  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Hale,  he  introduced  me  to  the  young  lady,  who  was 
indeed  overpowered  with  the  good  tidings  which  I  had 
brought.  He  then  turned  to  her  and  said,  in  his  own 
characteristic  way :  "  Young  lady,  this  is  a  gentleman  of 
whom  you  have  often  heard  in  New  England.  He  is  one 
of  the  Senators  from  Mississippi.  To  him  alone  are  you 
indebted  for  the  liberation  of  your  brother.  When  you 


78  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

get  home  again  be  sure  to  tell  your  friends  and  neighbors 
there  never  again  to  call  him  '  Hangman  Foote.' ' 
However  generous  may  have  been  Mr.  Ilale's  intentions 
in  this  regard,  I  am  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  I 

O  O 

have  often  since  had  proof  that  this  euphonious  and  im 
pressive  soubriquet  has  not  yet  ceased  to  vibrate  upon  the 
lips  of  many  among  the  excellent  descendants  of  the  time- 
honored  pilgrims. 

Mr.  Calhoun  is  entitled  to  more  than  the  casual  men 
tion  which  has  been  here  made  of  him.  lie  was  unques 
tionably  a  very  extraordinary  man.  Few  more  logical 
and  vigorous  reasoners  have  ever  made  their  appearance 
in  the  world.  lie  was  as  pure-minded  and  incorruptible 
a  statesman  as  our  country  has  ever  produced.  His 
morals  were  such  as  philosophers  might  emulate  and 
saints  approve.  lie  was  intensely  ambitious  of  public 
honors,  but  he  would  have  scorned  to  accept  the  most  ex 
alted  elevation  which  had  to  be  reached  by  trickish  sub 
tlety,  by  hypocritical  double-dealing,  or  by  fraud.  His 
knowledge  of  public  affairs  was  profound,  but  was  chiefly 
confined  to  the  concerns  of  his  own  country.  His  general 
literary  attainments  bore  no  proportion  to  his  knowledge 
of  the  principles  upon  which  our  Government  was  origin 
ally  founded,  and  the  histories  of  party  struggles  on 
American  soil.  He  sought  not  at  any  time  to  obtain  re 
cognition  as  a  scholar,  nor  do  I  think  that  he  had  ever 
read  with  attention  a  Greek  or  Latin  book  since  he  left 
college.  I  once  found  him  in  his  room  glancing  over  the 
pages  of  some  novel  which  had  just  emanated  from  the 
press;  he  told  me  that  it  was  the  first  book  of  the  sort  he 
had  ever  read,  and  that  he  was  perusing  this  one  only  at 
the  request  of  some  female  friend  who  had  sent  it  to  him 
from  Charleston  a  few  days  before  for  his  examination. 
In  the  early  part  of  his  public  career  he  had  entertained 
political  opinions  very  different  from  those  he  had  adopted 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  79 

in  subsequent  life  and  after  his  quarrel  with  General 
Jackson.  He  had  been,  when  Secretary  of  War  under 
Mr.  Monroe,  a  zealous  advocate  of  an  extended  "system"  of 
internal  improvements  by  the  General  Government;  he  had 
voted  in  Congress  some  years  before  this  for  a  national 
bank,  and  had  given  his  deliberate  sanction  to  the  prin 
ciple  of  protection.  In  1833  he  had  become  an  out-and- 
out  nullifier,  and  had  issued  two  elaborate  exposes  in  sup 
port  of  the  doctrine  which  he  had  then  embraced.  His 
views  assumed  a  strictly  sectional  character  during  the 
last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  and  I  am  persuaded  that  no 
reward  could  have  tempted  him  to  tread  upon  terra  firma 
anywhere  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  He  had 
long  since  ceased  to  feel  the  least  confidence  in  the  per 
manency  of  our  Federal  Union,  and  he  often  openly 
avowed  the  opinion  that  republican  institutions,  in  their 
purest  and  most  useful  form,  could  only  be  upheld  in  this 
hemisphere  on  the  basis  of  African  slavery.  He  was,  for 
several  years  previous  to  his  decease,  struggling  to  call 
into  existence  a  Southern  convention,  through  the  instru 
mentality  of  which  he  hoped  to  bring;  about  a  peaceful 
separation  of  the  States.  His  celebrated  "Address  to  the 
People  of  the  South,"  issued  about  two  years  before  his 
death,  and  subscribed  by  many  who  did  not  fully  com 
prehend  its  true  import  and  purpose,  was  doubtless,  as 
subsequent  events  most  clearly  proved,  designed  by  him 
to  pave  the  way  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  end  which 
he  had  so  much  at  heart.  The  second  grand  expedient 
upon  which  he  relied  for  the  termination  of  a  political 
union  which  had  positively  become  hateful  to  him  was 
the  assemblage  of  a  convention  at  Nashville  in  1850.  He 
hoped  that  the  proceedings  of  this  body  would  be  such  as 
effectually  to  defeat  the  efforts  then  making  in  Congress 
to  settle  all  the  difficulties  existing  in  connection  with 
slavery,  and  enable  the  South  to  set  up  a  new  govern- 


80  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

ment,  under  a  constitution  which  he  repeatedly  avowed 
he  had  prepared  for  her,  and  in  which  the  perpetuation 
of  African  slavery  would  be  a  leading  and  fundamental 
feature.  The  fatal  tendency  of  the  Nashville  convention 
movement  was  happily  counteracted  hy  the  wise  and  manly 
conduct  of  its  President,  Judge  William  L.  Sharkey ;  else 
there  is  no  conjecturing  what  ruinous  effects  might  have 
resulted  from  the  action  of  this  body.  Some  time  before 
the  last  Congress  which  Mr.  Calhouu  attended  met — in 
the  month  of  October,  18-A9 — I  had  written  a  letter  urg 
ing  him  warmly  to  take  the  lead,  upon  the  opening  of 
Congress,  in  moving  the  admission  of  California.  He  had 
written  a  letter  in  reply  stating  his  firm  determination  to 
keep  California  out  of  the  Union  as  long  as  he  could,  but 
avowing  at  the  same  time  his  entire  willingness  to  vote 
for  the  admission  of  Utah.  In  the  latter  Territory,  he 
said,  the  convention  which  had  assembled  there  had  pro 
vided  for  the  introduction  of  slavery  ;  whereas  California, 
as  he  had  learned,  was  overspread  with  abolitionists,  to 
whom,  he  stated,  the  New  York  regiment  sent  there  by 
Mr.  Polk  had  served  as  a  nucleus.  I  wrote  to  him  re 
peatedly  before  he  reached  Washington  city,  urging  him, 
upon  various  grounds,  to  modify  his  views  touching  this 
matter,  but  to  no  purpose.  When  he  got  to  Washington 
he  very  soon  became  greatly  excited,  and  declared  to  my 
self  and  to  others  that  he  thought  the  time  for  compro 
mise  had  gone  by,  and  that  he  should  hold  any  Southern 
man  dishonored  who  would,  in  the  condition  of  things 
then  existing,  initiate  a  proposition  of  that  kind.  At 
length  the  last  scene  of  this  extraordinary  man's  public 
career  had  its  progress.  He  had  caused  the  most  elabor 
ate  speech  of  his  life  to  be  prepared  and  to  be  put  in  print. 
lie  was  unable  to  deliver  it,  and  ho,  therefore,  got  Mr. 
Mason,  one  of  the  Senators  from  Virginia,  to  read  it  in 
the  hearing  of  the  Senate.  Xever  shall  I  forget  tho  im- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  81 

port  of  that  most  alarming  speech  or  Mr.  Calhoun's  ex 
cited  aspect  while  it  was  being  read.  To  all  the  most 
menacing  positions  embodied  therein  he  bowed  his  head 
assentingly,  and  looked  round  the  Senate-room  with  an 
expression  of  Jierce  determination,  which  I  had  never 
seen  him  exhibit  on  any  other  occasion. 

I  greatly  apprehended  the  effect  of  that  speech  upon  the 
deliberations  of  the  Nashville  convention,  which  body 
was  then  in  session.  When  I  read  it  in  the  newspapers 
next  morning  I  found  that  in  the  name  of  the  South  he 
had  demanded  a  constitutional  amendment,  which  he  said 
was  indispensable  to  the  settlement  of  the  questions  in 
agitation.  So,  early  that  day,  I  brought  the  subject  to 
the  notice  of  the  Senate  and  the  country,  and  declared 
emphatically  that  I  did  not  concur  with  Mr.  Calhoun  in 
his  demand  for  a  constitutional  amendment.  This  gen 
tleman  coming  in  while  I  was  yet  speaking,  interrupted 
me  for  a  moment,  and,  after  interrogating  me  in  regard 
to  the  allusions  I  had  been  making  to  himself,  and  after 
having  heard  my  response  thereto,  he  said,  as  reported  in 
the  Congressional  Globe  : 

"But  I  will  say,  and  I  say  it  boldly,  for  I  am  not  afraid  to  say  the 
truth  on  any  question,  that,  as  things  now  stand,  the  Southern  States 
can  not  with  safety  remain  in  the  Union.  When  this  question  may  he 
settled,  when  we  shall  conic  to  a  constitutional  understanding,  is  a 
question  of  time  ;  but,  as  tilings  now  stand,  I  appeal  to  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi  if  he  thinks  that  the  South  can  remain  in  the  Union 
upon  terms  of  equality." 

To  which  I  am  reported  as  having  replied: 

u  We  can  not,  unless  the  pending  questions  are  settled  ;  hut,  in  my 
opinion,  these  questions  may  he  settled,  and  honorably  sdtled,  within 
ten  days'  time." 

Then  rejoined  Mr.  Calhoun : 

"Does  the  Senator  think  that  the  South  can  remain  in  the  Union 
upon  terms  of  equality  without  a  specific  guarantee  that  she  shall  enjoy 
her  rights  unmolested?" 
G  R 


82  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

To  which  the  answer,  as  reported,  was : 

41 1.  think  slie  may,  icHliout  any  previous  amendment  of  (he  Constitution. 
There  \ve  disagree." 

Mr.  Calhoun  then  frankly  responded: 

41  Yes,  there  we  disagree  entirely;  and  there,  t  think,  he  disagrees 
with  oni1  ancestors.  I  agree  with  them." 

It  is  evident  to  all  minds  now  that  had  this  demand 
of  a  new  guarantee  for  slavery  been  concurred  in  by  thc> 
whole  South  in  1850  civil  war  would  have  been  inevitably 
brought  upon  the  land.  It  was  the  injudicious  getting 
up  of  a  similar  demand  afterward,  in  1861,  and  the  refusal 
to  accede  to  it,  which  caused  the  war  of  four  years  through 
which  the  country  has  since  passed.  Whether  if  Mr.  Cal 
houn  had  lived  he  would  have  persevered  in  this  requisi 
tion  to  the  extreme  apparently  indicated  may  be  perhaps 
a  little  questionable.  He  greatly  preferred  discussion  to 
the  shedding  of  blood,  and  would  possibly  have  been  found 
willing  to  retrace  his  steps  had  he  seen  murder  and  carnage 
before  him. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  83 


REMINISCENCE  No.  IX. 

SAFETY  COMMITTEE  OF  NEW  YORK — MR.  CLAY  AND  GENERAL 
CASS — GENERAL  PIERCE — MR.  BUCHANAN — MR.  DOUGLAS- 
MR.  DICKINSON — JEFF  DAVIS. 

I  have  not  heretofore  noticed  a  very  important  move 
ment  which  originated  in  the  city  of  New  York,  (a  place 
ever  remarkable  for  its  steady  conservatism  in  national 
politics,)  which,  had  it  been  allowed  to  progress  to  its 
natural  and  hoped-for  termination,  would  have  tended 
greatly  to  harmonize  all  the  conflicting  elements  then 
astir  in  the  land,  and  would  in  all  probability  have 
ushered  in  a  new  "era  of  good  feeling."  Calling  for  a 
day  or  two  on  certain  friends  in  this  great  commercial 
emporium,  when  on  my  way  to  Washington,  in  the 
month  of  November,  1851,  I  was  visited  by  a  number 
of  gentlemen  belonging  to  what  was  then  known  as  the 
Safety  Committee  of  the  city  of  New  York,  composed  of 
a  hundred  individuals  of  great  respectability  and  wealth, 
which  committee  had  rendered  great  service  to  the  Union 
cause  during  the  trying  period  of  1850.  By  these  persons 
I  was  consulted  seriously  touching  the  expediency  of  get 
ting  up,  if  such  a  thing  should  be  found  practicable,  a 
mixed  Presidential  ticket  for  the  canvass  of  1852,  upon 
which  should  be  inscribed  the  name  of  one  Democrat  and 
one  Whig,  both  of  whom  should  be  known  to  be  men  of 
weight  and  experience,  and  true  to  the  cause  of  the 
Union.  The  names  of  Mr.  Clay  and  General  Cass  were 
the  two  most  favored  at  that  time  in  New  York,  and  per 
haps  in  every  State  of  the  North,  the  South,  the  East, 
and  the  West.  I  was  greatly  pleased  with  the  scheme 
proposed,  and  at  once  agreed  to  co-operate  therein  mo^t 


84  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

zealously.  The  disjointed  and  demoralized  condition  of 
both  the  old  party  organizations  at  that  time,  each  of 
which  was  known  within  its  bosom  to  contain  elements 
of  extremism  constantly  threatening  combustion  and  an 
archy,  seemed  to  demand  very  imperiously  that  these  or 
ganizations  should  be  recognized  as  now  in  a  defunct 
state,  and  that  a  new  political  party  should  be  called  into 
existence,  strictly  national  in  its  character,  and  which 
would  be  strong  enough  to  suppress  faction  everywhere 
and  consolidate  the  Government  upon  a  platform  recog 
nizing  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  as  a  complete 
and  final  settlement,  in  principle  and  in  substance,  of  the 
distracting  questions  growing  out  of  African  slavery. 
Such  a  ticket  as  that  suscs^ested.  it  was  believed,  would 

oo 

sweep  the  Union  from  Maine  to  California,  and  defeat 
the  hopes  of  those  everywhere  who  preferred  sectionalism 
to  nationality.  The  committee  promised  to  have  suita 
ble  resolutions  prepared  for  adoption  at  a  large  popular 
assemblage  soon  to  be  held  in.  the  city  of  New  York ;  and 
they  engaged  also  to  address  at  the  proper  time  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Clay,  and  another  to  General  Cass,  asking  of  them 
the  privilege  of  using  their  names  in  the  manner  sug 
gested.  These  letters  were  to  be  inclosed  to  me,  on  con 
dition  that  I  would  at  once  hand  them  to  the  parties  to 
whom  they  were  to  be  directed,  and  would  ask  of  them 
respectfully  and  earnestly  a  prompt  response  to  the  same. 
I  had  the  honor  to  be  requested  also  to  express  to  the 
committee  my  own  opinion  of  the  project,  provided  that 
on  reaching  Washington  the  views  then  entertained  by 
me  should  undergo  no  change.  In  a  few  days  the  letters 
from  the  committee  reached  my  hands,  and  I  lost  no  time 
in  delivering  to  Messrs.  Clay  and  Cass  the  communica 
tions  addressed  to  them,  accompanying  this  act  with  a 
very  warm  solicitation  on  my  part  that  they  would  com 
ply  with  the  patriotic  demand  with  which  they  had  been 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  8,) 

honored.  Mr.  Clay  was  then  in  a  very  feeble  state  of 
health,  and  was  not  expecting  even  to  live  more  than  a 
year  or  two  longer  at  most.  lie  had  long  since  ceased  to 
cherish  Presidential  aspirations ;  but  his  great  soul  was 
yet  beating  healthfully  and  fervently  for  his  country's  re 
pose  and  happiness.  He  at  once  consented  to  pursue  the 
course  suggested  by  the  committee,  provided  General  Cass 
should  agree  to  co-operate  in  the  movement.  Mr.  Clay, 
it  Avill  be  recollected,  had  some  time  before  announced  his 
opinion  that  the  time  had  arrived  for  the  Whig  party  to 
retire  from  the  arena,  and  I  know  that  he  entertained 
precisely  the  same  view  in  regard  to  the  duty  of  those 
who  constituted  what  was  called  the  Democratic  party. 

For  a  day  or  two  after  the  delivery  of  these  important 
letters  I  really  thought  most  confidently  that  the  move 
ment  must  inevitably  prove  a  great  success.  But  the 
event  showed  that  1  greatly  underrated  the  power  of 
party  bigotry,  and  the  inclination  almost  unavoidable 
among  the  accustomed  leaders  of  great  political  move 
ments  to  rely  for  the  attainment  of  desired  public  ends 
exclusively  and  implicitly  upon  the  well-organized  party 
machinery  which  they  hold  at  the  time  under  their  con 
trol,  and  with  all  the  mysterious  operations  of  which  long 
use  has  rendered  them  thoroughly  familiar.  It  is,  per 
haps,  but  natural  for  such  persons  to  suppose  that  to  rescue 
a  country  from  danger  by  instrumentalities  different  from 
those  they  have  been  in  the  habit  of  employing  would  be 
almost  equivalent  to  taking  poison — certain  to  slay,  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  some  troublesome  malady,  conjectured 
to  be  otherwise  incurable.  To  go  outside  the  Democratic 
party  with  a  hope  of  thus  finding  relief  for  evils  preying 
upon  the  vitals  of  the  body  politic  would  seem  even  now 
to  some  veteran  party  managers  whom  I  know  to  be  far 
worse  than  formally  giving  their  consent  to  the  imme 
diate  death  of  the  Republic  itself.  Instead  of  making 


SO  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCKS. 

party  merely  a  convenient,  as  it  often  is,  a  valuable  sub 
sidiary  also  to  patriotism,  they  willingly  sacrifice  all 
patriotic  purposes  to  the  glory  of  the  Democratic  name 
and  discipline.  To  reason  with  such  persons  is  simply  to 
waste  your  time,  especially  if  they  he  such  as  have  long- 
cherished  desires  of  personal  advancement  by  means  of 
strict  party  support.  So  it  was  in  this  very  instance. 
General  Cass,  whose  aspirations  to  the  Presidency  had 
not  yet  left  the  pure  and  lofty  bosom  which  they  had  so 
long  animated,  and  who  was  now  hopefully  looking  for 
ward  to  a  second  nomination  for  the  Presidency  at  the 
hands  of  the  party  which  he  had  been  very  assiduously 
serving  for  a  toilsome  and  troublous  lifetime,  read  the  let 
ter  sent  him  by  the  ^ew  York  committee  with  equal  sur 
prise  and  mortification,  and  told  me,  with  little  appear 
ance  of  gratitude  for  my  officiousness  in  his  behalf,  that 
he  would  consult  Mr.  Dickinson,  Mr.  Douglas,  and  some 
others  that  he  named  from  among  his  known  political 
devotees,  and  that  should  they  consent  to  his  taking  such 
a  step  as  that  now  admonished,  he  would  make  known 
the  fact  as  soon  as  he  could  after  having  been  by  them 
counseled  to  do  so.  In  about  two  days  he  brought  to  me 
his  letter  of  declension  to  the  ^N"ew  York  committee,  and 
thus  lost  the  best  opportunity  for  the  acquisition  of  true 
glory  which  had  ever  opened  upon  his  view.  Mr.  Clay 
could  of  course  only  now  imitate  his  example,  and  with  a 
sore  and  aggrieved  bosom  I  transmitted  these  responses 
to  the  appropriate  destination,  though  not  without  pro 
testing,  as  I  have  been  so  often  constrained  to  do,  over 
the  madness  as  well  as  the  dishonoring  effects  of  a  cold- 

O 

blooded  and  soul-withering  party-policy.  I  shall  be  ex 
cused  for  here  adding  that  I  was  then  quite  as  well  satis 
fied  as  ever  I  have  subsequently  become  that  what  was 
called  the  Democratic  party  had  even  then  degenerated 
into  a  selfish  and  spoils-adoring  faction;  that  as  a  politi- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  87 

cal  organization  it  bad  1'ost  all  its  lofty  and  disinterested 
aspirations ;  that  it  was  destined  only  to  be  kept  in  exist 
ence  for  the   benefit  of  such  party   managers  as    might 
feel  that  they  had  no  right  to  hope  for  advancement  upon 
the  basis  of  merit  and  qualification,  and  must  therefore 
rely  alone   upon  a  cunning  trickery,  and  a  super-subtile 
dexterity  ;  and  I  am  confident  that  I  now  see  depicted 
upon  the  sky  of  a  not  distant  future  the  deep  disgrace 
and  ruinous  discomfiture  which  are  to  be  hereafter  the 
reward  of  those  who,  having  no  longer  any  great  and 
patriotic  ends  to  accomplish,  and  no  distinctive  principles 
to  maintain,  foolishly  attempt  to  keep  in  existence  names 
and  symbols  once  of  surpassing  dignity,  but  which  only 
now  serve  to  cover  the  purposes  of  a  low-minded  ambition, 
and   aid,  perchance,  in   elevating  to  places  of  important 
public  trust  men  whose  sole   usefulness  really  consists  in 
the  capability  which  they  are  seen  sometimes  to  manifest 
of  putting  in  use  a  sort  of  silent,  whispering  eloquence,  a 
stupid,  unharmfulness — the  meet  companion  of  this  sort 
of  impotency.     In  the  forlorn  condition  of  things  which 
I  then  saw  to  exist  I  did  not  altogether  despair,  and  I 
sought  to  anticipate  the  action  of  convention-part}^  ma 
chinery  by  getting  the  two  houses  of  Congress  to  adopt  at 
once  a  resolution  declaring  the  Compromise  enactments  of 
1850  to  be  "  a  final  settlement,  in  principle  and  substance, 
of  all  the  distracting  questions  growing  out  of  African 
slavery."     This  resolution  I  left  in  the  Senate  when  I  re 
signed  my  seat  in  that  body  in  order  to  return  to  Missis 
sippi,  where  I  had  just  been  elected  Governor.     Though 
it  did  not  afterward  pass  the  Senate,  in  a  month  or  two  the 
same  resolution  found  its  way,  almost  in  totidem  verlis,  into 
the  political  platforms  adopted  by   the  Democratic  and 
Whig  national  conventions   respectively ;   the  important 
words  embraced  in  which,  it  was  hoped  by  some,  might 
be  respected  in  office  by  him  who  should  be  chosen  Presi- 


88  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

dent  in  that  contest,  which  soon  after,  to  the  surprise  of 
all  who  could  not  comprehend  the  full  force  of  party  ma 
chinery  and  unscrupulous  chicane,  resulted  in  raising  to 
the  office  once  held  by  a  Washington  and  a  Jackson, 
Franklin  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire. 

All  acquainted  with  the  history  of  that  time  need  not 
now  to  be  told  that  the  main  question  existing  in  the 
popular  mind  in  the  Presidential  canvass  of  1852  was  as 
to  whether  General  Scott  or  General  Pierce  was  the  bet 
ter  finality  man.  That  is  to  say,  whether  the  country 
would  be,  in  all  probability,  the  more  effectually  tran- 
quilized  under  the  administration  of  the  one  or  under 
that  of  the  other?  Mr.  Pierce  undoubtedly  owed  his 
nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1852  mainly  to  the  fact, 
very  dexterously  paraded  at  the  time  before  the  conven 
tion  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Baltimore,  that  he  had  a 
few  weeks  before  written  and  published  a  strong  finality 
letter;  but  for  which  circumstance  he  would  certainly 
never  have  had  an  opportunity  presented  to  him  of  cruel 
ly  disappointing  the  hopes  of  a  generous  and  confiding 
people,  and  of  rekindling  as  far  as  it  lay  in  his  power  the 
smouldering  fires  of  sectional  strife  into  a  perilous  and  all- 
destroying  conflagration.  Surely  there  was  nothing  in 
Mr.  Pierce's  abilities  or  habits  of  life  to  cause  the  public 
attention  to  be  fixed  upon  him  as  a  suitable  person  to 
mount  the  car  of  state  at  a  mo'ment  so  critical ;  and  the 
furious  and  dashing  vehemence  with  which  he  was  soon 
seen  to  move  along  the  political  firmament  might  well 
have  suggested  to  the  classic  mind  the  enterprising  career 
of  that  fabled  son  of  Phoebus,  Phaeton  by  name,  who  is  de 
scribed  as  having  on  a  certain  occasion,  in  a  moment  of 
celestial  frolicksomeness,  set  all  the  heavens  in  a  blaze. 

So  emphatically  had  Mr.  Pierce  been  recognized  every 
where  as  irrevocably  pledged  to  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850,  and  to  the  finality  policy  now  annexed  thereto, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  89 

that  ho  notoriously  lost  many  thousand  votes  in  the  South 
among  men  of  secession  proclivities  on  this  account,  and 
in  Mississippi  alone,  it  is  within  my  own  personal  knowl 
edge,  that  at  least  five  thousand  voters  of  this  description 
refused  him  their  support,  while  all  who  had  voted  for  me 
in  my  contest  with  Jefferson  Davis  in  the  preceding  guber 
natorial  canvass  came  forward  cheerfully  and  yielded 
their  full  support  to  the  opponent  of  that  gallant,  upright, 
and  thrice  glorious  military  commander,  whom  the  Whigs 
had  selected  as  their  standard-bearer  in  that  fierce  con 
flict. 

In  reference  to  the  matter  at  present  under  considera 
tion,  I  find  it  stated  in  a  work  whose  correct  ness  it  would 
become  me  least  of  all  men  living  to  call  in  question,  that 
Mr.  Pierce  "had  scarcely  been  elected  to  the  Presidency 
when  he  called  into  special  conference  Mr.  Hunter,  of 
Virginia,/  one  of  the  most  extreme  men  in  his  opinions 
that,  outside  of  South  Carolina,  the  whole  South  con 
tained,  and  the  noted  Caleb  Gushing,  of  Massachusetts, 
who  had  signalized  himself  very  specially,  many  years 
before,  by  delivering  the  most  furious  and  uncompromis 
ing  speech  ever  heard  in  Congress  upon  the  occasion  of 
Arkansas,  asking  admission  into  the  Union ;  who, 
although  he  had  afterward  yielded  support  to  the  admin 
istration  of  Mr.  Tyler  for  a  short  period,  (for  which  his 
services  had  been  rewarded  with  an  Oriental  cornmis- 
sionership,  in  which  he  is  reported  to  have  become  quite 
a  connoisseur  in  distinguishing  between  the  savory  flesh 
of  ducks  and  that  of  the  young  proles  of  the  canine  spe 
cies,)  and  though  he  had  subsequently  given  his  support 
to  the  Mexican  war,  and  gone  through  certain  romantic 
adventures  beyond  the  Rio  Grande  without  having  a 
chance  of  staining  his  virgin  sword  with  the  hated  blood 
of  the  foo,  had  really  not  a  particle  of  claim  to  control  the 
action  of  a  Democratic  administration  entering  upon  its 


90  CASKET    OF    KKMINISCKNCES. 

official  career  under  such  circumstances  as  those  which 
now  surrounded  Mr.  Pierce.  These  two  sage  advisers  are 
understood  to  have  counseled  Mr.  Pierce  to  call  to  his 
Cabinet  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi,  who  was  then 
in  profound  retirement  after  his  unsuccessful  experiment 
of  secession  in  1851,  in  which  retirement  it  is  quite  cer 
tain  he  would  have  permanently  remained  but  for  Mr. 
Pierce's  being  weak  enough  to  act  upon  this  advice.  It 
is  understood  that  this  appointment  was  made  with  a 
view  to  conciliating  the  secessionists  of  the  South,  who 
had,  as  already  observed,  yielded  to  Mr.  Pierce  but  a  cold 
and  reluctant  support,  many  of  them,  indeed,  and  especially 
in  Mr.  Davis'  own  State,  having  altogether  declined  voting 
in  the  Presidential  election.  Mr.  dishing,  who  was  to  be 
Attorney  General  under  the  new  regime,  had  reason  to 
believe  that  by  force  of  his  early  political  affiliations  and 
by  the  skillful  distribution  of  the  spoils  of  office  he  would 
bring  injto  the  fold  all  the  aspirants  to  public  station  who 
then  belonged  to  the  abolition  faction  of  the  Xorth,  while 
Mr.  Davis,  by  discriminating  in  appointing  to  office  in 
favor  of  known  disunionists  and  against  those  who  had 
battled  so  faithfully  for  the  Compromise  measures,  through 
out  the  South,  it  was  confidently  expected  would  work 
wonders  in  attracting  to  the  support  of  his  over-confiding 
chief  the  sectional  faction ists  of  that  region.  It  was  fanci 
fully  enough  supposed  that  the  friends  of  the  Union  every 
where  would  infallibly  remain  firm  in  their  support  of 
Mr.  Pierce  on  the  ground  of  his  former  professions,  so 
that  there  was,  upon  the  whole,  as  they  opined,  a  capital 
prospect  of  opening  upon  the  country  an  administration 
of  four  years  which  would  be  fortunate  enough  to  awaken 
no  enmities,  and  an  equally  flattering  prospect  that  Mr. 
Pierce  would  himself  be  re-elected  in  1856,  or  that  at  least 
the  privilege  would  be  accorded  to  him  of  nominating 
his  own  successor ;  which  successor  would  undoubtedly 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


have  been  the  immortal  Jeff.  Davis  himself.  How  signally 
and  cruelly  all  these  fine-spun  calculations  were  disap 
pointed  in  the  sequel,  and  how  soon  all  these  vapid  and 
airy  speculations  passed  away  into  the  somber  region  of 
nothingness,  the  world  now  knows.  Mr.  Pierce,  who 
imagined  himself  to  possess,  and  who  was  supposed  by 
some  of  his  own  partial  friends  also  to  possess  quite  a  pretty 
talent  for  phosphorescent  declamatory  rhetoric,  com 
menced  so  soon  as  he  had  a  chance  to  do  so,  in  his  official 
messages  and  otherwise,  discoursing  vehemently  upon  the 
untold  blessings  of  slavery.  He  extolled  the  Sunny  South 
and  all  her  peculiar  modes  of  thought  and  N  sentiment  in 
language  of  most  glowing  exuberance  ;  proclaimed  him 
self  to  all  the  world  as  a  sort  of  heaven-descended  cham 
pion  of  her  slave-holding  rights  and  interests  ;  and  very 
soon  managed  to  disgust  every  truly  national  man  'in  the 
country  ;  giving  renewed  organization  and  overwhelming 
strength  to  the  anti-slavery  associations  of  the  isrorth  ; 
while  the  lavish  outpouring  of  official  patronage  upon 
known  Free-Soil  Democrats  of  that  section  imparted  so 
much  of  adscititious  dignity  to  this  particular  class  of 
individuals  as  enabled  them  to  wield  an  almost  irresistible 
potency  in  the  Presidential  contest  of  1854  ;  but  not  in 
favor  of  James  Buchanan  ! 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Pierce  and  his  worse  than  purblind 
Cabinet  assistants  openly  and  unblushingly  interfered  in 
all  the  political  elections  in  all  the  States,  (a  favorite 
expedient  with  the  spoils-loving  and  degenerate  Democ 
racy  in  these  modern  days,)  employing  patronage  every 
where  in  order  to  control  votes,  (thus  setting  the  first  dis 
gusting  example  of  this  sort  known  in  our  annals,)  and 
spreading  through  every  part  of  the  Republic  such  an 
abominable  spirit  of  huckstering  and  corrupt  political 
bargaining  as  even  Walpole,  in  the  palmiest  days  of  his 
guilt-besmirched  glory,  had  never  been  able  to  call  into 


92  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

existence.  In  less  than  a  twelvemonth  after  Mr.  Pierce 's 
induction  into  the  Presidency  every  man  of  solid  under 
standing,  hoth  in  Congress  and  elsewhere,  who  had  aided 
this  ill-starred  scion  of  the  Granite  State  in  his  efforts  to 
reach  the  Presidency,  became  satisfied  of  his  utter  incom- 
petency  for  the  performance  of  the  duties  devolved  on  him, 
and  honest  men  everywhere  were  tilled  with  mingled 
amazement  and  disgust  at  nearly  all  that  was  from  time 
to  time  reported  to  them  as  occurring  under  the  sinister 
auspices  which  clustered  around  him.  For  instance,  such 
men  as  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  and  the  lamented  Justice 
Bronson,  of  New  York,  and  many  other  fair-minded 
Democrats  elsewhere  of  almost  equal  eminence,  were 
driven,  alike  by  a  feeling  of  elevated  self-respect  and  by  a 
sentiment  of  genuine  patriotism,  into  open  opposition  ; 
and  innumerable  official  blunders,  Ostend  manifestoes,  and 
the  like,  soon  rendered  Mr.  Pierce  and  his  ill-assorted 
Cabinet  as  sublimely  ridiculous  before  the  world  at  large 
as  the  accidents  of  political  fortune  had  made  them  pow 
erful  for  mischief  and  impotent  for  any  purpose  of  good 
within  the  confines  of  their  own  country. 

A  fact  has  now  to  be  mentioned  "which  I  shall  never 
cease  to  regret,  and  which  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence 
filled  my  mind  alike  with  surprise  and  chagrin.  For 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  while  he  was  yet  living,  I  entertained 
a  sincere  friendship  and  respect,  proof  of  which  I  could 
give,  if  need  be,  that  would  leave  no  mind  in  the  least 
doubt.  I  knew  him  intimately  for  many  years.  I  admired 
his  noble  and  manly  spirit,  his  remarkable  energy  and 
industry,  his  vigor  and  effectiveness  in  debate,  and  his 
ardent  love  of  country.  I  voted  for  him  in  1860  for  the 
Presidency  of  the  Republic,  and  were  the  contest  of  that 
period  now  to  recur  I  should  do  precisely  as  I  did  then. 
He  had  his  faults,  like  other  men,  but  these  faults  did  not 
obscure  the  luster  of  his  virtues,  or  seriously  weaken  his 


CASKET    OF   KEMINISCENCES.  93 

claims  to  the  esteem  and  gratitude  of  liis  affectionate  and 
admiring  countrymen.  I  saw  Mr.  Douglas  for  the  last 
time  in  my  own  distant  home  in  the  Southwest,  with  the 
exception  of  a  single  other  occasion,  when  I  heard  him 
address  a  large  and  enthusiastic  meeting  in  the  bosom  of 
the  State  of  Georgia.  I  am  about  to  observe  very  briefly 
upon  one  of  his  acts,  which  I  personally  know  that  he 
did  himself  most  painfully  regret.  I  will  speak  of  this 
act  only  as  I  have  repeatedly  spoken  to  himself  of  it  in 
private.  Of  course,  I  am  alluding  to  his  connection  with 
what  is  known  as  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  or  rather  to 
his  agreeing  to  incorporate  in  that  bill  a  clause  repealing 
the  Missouri  compromise.  It  is  known  that  for  some 
time  he  was  reluctant  to  give  his  assent  to  a  proposition 
which  he  had  so  much  reason  to  fear  might  revive  the 
agitation  which  he  had  for  so  many  years  been  laboring 
to  assuage.  I  obtained  sixteen  y ears  ago  full  evidences  of 
the  real  facts  of  this  case  from  the  lips  of  a  high-minded 
citizen  of  Kentucky,  who  I  am  glad  to  know  is  still  liv 
ing,  and  by  whom  the  repealing  proposition  was  first 
introduced  into  the  National  Senate.  Mr.  Douglas  only 
agreed  to  become  sponsor  for  the  proposition  to  repeal  the 
Missouri  compromise  after  having  been  solicited  to  do  so 
by  certain  gentlemen  from  the  South  of  extreme  views  in 
regard  to  slavery,  one  of  whom,  at  least,  was  a  member  of 
Mr.  Pierce's  cabinet.  It  was  even  whispered  to  Mr.  Doug 
las  that,  should  he  yield  compliance  to  the  solicitations 
with  which  he  was  being"  plied,  it  would  secure  him  the 
support  of  Mr.  Pierce  and  his  Cabinet  in  the  then  approach 
ing  Presidential  race. 

That  the  formal  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise  was 
a  violation  of  the  principle  of  finality  no  one  will  venture 
to  deny  who  has  read  Mr.  Douglas'  admirably-drawn 
report  on  this  subject  in  the  Thirty-Third  Congress;  in 
which  report,  referring  to  the  fact  that  the  adopters  of 


I 

94  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  Compromise  of  1850  had  cautiously  avoided  all  inter 
meddling  with  this  very  delicate  question,  he  said :  "  As 
Congress  deemed  it  wise  and  prudent  to  refrain  from 
deciding  the  matter  then,  either  by  affirming  or  repealing 
the  Mexican  laws,  or  by  an  act  declaratory  of  the  true 
intent  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  extent  of  the  protec 
tion  afforded  by  it  to  slave  property  in  the  Territories,  so 
your  committee  are  not  prepared  to  recommend  a  depar 
ture  from  the  course  pursued  on  that  occasion,  either  by 
affirming  or  repealing  the  eighth  section  of  the  Missouri 
act,  or  by  any  act  declaratory  of  the  true  meaning  of  the 
Constitution  in  respect  to  the  legal  points  in  dispute." 

Mr.  Pierce  came  into  power  when  the  country  was  visi 
bly  passing  into  a  state  of  happy  and  prosperous  repose. 
lie  left  behind  him,  when  he  returned  to  private  life,  the 
incipient  mutterings  of  a  rising  tempest,  whose  fury, 
though  once  or  twice  intermediately  suspended  for  a  short 
period,  was  not  to  receive  its  final  quietus  until  after  a 
long  period  of  blood  and  carnage  should  have  been  expe 
rienced ;  until  the  evil  system  of  servile  labor,  for  the 
maintenance  and  perpetuation  of  which  he  had  toiled  so 
industriously,  should  be  seen  to  tumble  into  ruin  even  by 
the  recoiling  of  the  forces  employed  for  its  support  ;  until 
the  Democratic  cause  and  name  should  both  be  so  dis 
credited  and  enfeebled  that  no  earthly  power  would  ever 
be  able  to  redeem  them  from  dishonor,  or  render  it  safe  or 
expedient  to  rely  upon  its  boasted  enginery  either  for  the 
upholding  of  our  national  honor,  or  for  the  giving  a 
healthful  and  beneficent  propagation  in  foreign  lands  to 
the  sacred  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  which 
our  unequaled  fathers  have  handed  down  to  us  and  ours 
for  eternal  preservation. 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  95 


No.  X. 


MR.  VAN    BTTREN  —  MR.    FORSYTE  —  MR.    HOLT  —  MR.    PRESTON- 
MR.  PIERCE. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  that  I  should  state  that  on  my 
return  to  Mississippi  in  the  summer  of  1836,  after  the  visit 
to  Albany  already  mentioned,!  took  an  active  part  in  the 
Presidential  canvass  then  in  progress.  "W  hether  I  rendered 
any  service  to  the  Democratic  cause  at  that  period  in  the 
Southwestern  section  of  the  Union  it  is  not  for  me  to  de 
cide. 

I  should  ill  perform  the  reminiscent  task  which  I  have 
undertaken  did  I  not  here  make  some  mention  of  an  in 
dividual  with  whom  rny  first  acquaintance  was  formed 
about  this  period,  and  in  connection  with  the  political 
movements  then  in  progress.  This  person  has  since  ob 
tained  much  and  deserved  celebrity,  and  in  the  elevated 
position  now  occupied  by  him  stands  little  in  need  of  any 
commendation  which  it  would  be  in  my  power  to  bestowr 
on  him.  He  has  held  many  high  official  stations  in  the 
last  fifteen  years,  and  has  acquired  a  reputation  for  ability 
which  no  one  would  think  of  calling  in  question.  Joseph 
Holt  is  a  native  of  Kentucky,  and  made  his  entree  upon 
the  political  arena,  as  I  have  learned,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  celebrated  Amos  Kendall,  a  personage  whom  I 
knew  for  many  years  very  familiarly,  and  for  whom  I 
ever  cherished  a  veritable  respect  and  friendship.  Mr. 
Holt  was  assistant  editor  of  a  well-known  newspaper  pub 
lished  in  Kentucky  of  which  Mr.  Kendall  had  the  chief 
control.  At  least  this  is  what  I  have  often  heard  stated 
by  those  who  professed  to  have  personal  knowledge  of  the 
fact.  He  was  afterward  district  attorney  for  some  time 


96  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

in  Louisville,  and  displayed  such  extraordinary  adroit 
ness  and  skill  in  the  prosecution  of  criminal  offenders 
that  it  is  related  as  a  fact  that  the  Governor  of  Kentucky 
refused  to  continue  him  in  the  office  which  he  so  ably 
filled,  expressly  on  the  ground  that  it  was  impossible  for 
any  alleged  culprit  to  escape  the  undergoing  of  legal  pun 
ishment  when  Mr.  Holt  put  out  his  whole  strength  as  the 
representative 'of  the  government.  In  1836  Mr.  Holt 
made  his  appearance  at  the  National  Democratic  Conven 
tion  which  held  its  session  in  Baltimore  ;  and  when  Col 
onel  Richard  M.  Johnson  was  put  in  nomination  for  the 
Vice  Presidency,  he  rose  up  and  delivered  a  speech  in  sup 
port  of  his  claims  which  is  said  to  have  surprised  and 
even  electrified  all  who  listened  to  it.  This  speech  im 
mediately  made  its  appearance  in  the  newspapers,  and 
the  young  Kentucky  orator  in  a  few  hours  experienced 
what  Lord  Byron  so  strikingly  describes  when  he  says, 
in  reference  to  the  first  publication  of  the  earlier  cantos 
of  Childe  Harold  :  "I  waked  up  in  the  morning  and  found 
myself  famous."  A  short  time  after  this  achievement, 
Mr.  Holt  came  to  Mississippi,  and  his  arrival  there  was 
productive  of  a  most  profound  sensation.  I  well  remem 
ber  calling  upon  him  a  few  days  subsequent  to  his  advent 
among  us,  in  one  of  the  parlors  of  the  hotel  in  the  town 
of  Clinton,  then  a  place  of  much  importance,  in  company 
with  several  other  gentlemen,  for  the  purpose  of  welcom 
ing  him  to  the  bosom  of  that  then  prosperous  common 
wealth,  and  proffering  him  our  assurances  of  sympathy 
and  esteem.  We  were  all  struck  with  the  modesty  of  his 
aspect  and  demeanor,  and  we  were  pained  to  observe 
what  we  thought  to  be  the  tokens  of  declining  health — 
soon,  in  all  probability,  we  feared,  to  be  succeeded  by  a 
premature  decease.  Mr.  Holt  lost  no  time  in  entering 
upon  the  brilliant  forensic  career  which  he  afterward  ran; 
and,  by  an  extraordinary  exercise  of  professional  dili- 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  97 

gence,  as  well  as  by  giving  constant  evidence  of  ability, 
he  succeeded  in  the  short  space  of  four  or  five  years  in  ac 
cumulating  a  larger  estate  than  most  lawyers  are  able  to 
acquire  by  the  labors  of  a  lifetime.  I  heard  him  very 
often  when  engaged  in  the  argument  of  cases  of  the  great 
est  dignity  and  magnitude,  and  I  can  declare  with  truth 
that  I  have  never  listened  to  a  more  brilliant  or  effective 
advocate.  lie  always  had  an  air  of  great  serenity  and 
mildness  when  engaged  in  discussion,  and  his  counte 
nance  was  generally  a  little  shaded  by  what  seemed  to  be 
an  expression  of  sadness.  The  tones  of  his  voice  had 
something  in  them  inexpressibly  soft  and  touching ;  and 
so  attractive  did  he  often  become,  as  he  advanced  from 
point  to  point,  that  those  who  heard  his  calm  and  uni 
formly  insinuating  exordium  were  irresistibly  constrained 
to  remain  in  his  presence  long  enough  to  hear  the  last 
words  of  his  peroration,  lie  indulged  less  than  any  emi 
nent  speaker  I  have  known  in  gesture,  and  scarcely  ever 
withdrew  his  earnest  <mze  from  the  faces  of  those  he  was 

O 

addressing;  and,  strange  to  say,  I  never  saw  him  on  any 
occasion  cast  an  inquiring  glance  upon  the  surrounding 
audience  for  the  wished-for  tokens  of  approval,  which  is 
now  so  common  a  practice.  It  was  then  evident  that 
Mr.  Holt  was  a  well-read  lawyer ;  and  the  style  in  which 
he  expressed  himself,  either  to  judge  or  jury,  bore  marks 
of  very  high  literary  culture.  The  contests  in  court 
which  sometimes  occurred  between  himself  and  the  cele 
brated  S.  S.  Prentiss,  of  Mississippi,  (of  whom  I  am  gen 
erally  supposed  to  know  about  as  much  as  any  other  in 
dividual,)  would,  I  am  certain,  have  commanded  atten 
tion  as  well  as  enlisted  the  most  intense  interest  also  even 
in  Westminster  Hall,  or  in  the  most  renowned  courts  of 
the  European  continent,  and  I  would  now  travel  many 
miles  to  witness  one  such  scene  of  intellectual  digladia- 
7  R 


98  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

tion  us  I  have  formerly  beheld  with  so  much  delight  and 
admiration  between  these  two  giants  of  the  bar. 

Mr.  Holt  came  to  see  me  several  times  in  Washington 
when  I  had  the  honor  fo  he  here  in  a  public  capacity. 
On  one  of  these  occasions,  I  remember,  he  was  on  his  way 
to  the  Old  World,  and  on  another  I  saw  him  after  his 
return,  and  I  listened  to  his  glowing  and  graphic  descrip 
tion  of  all  that  he  had  been  surveying,  both  in  Europe 
and  Asia,  with  the  highest  gratification. 

It  has  always  been  a  source  of  gratulation  to  me  that 
Mr.  Holt  felt  a  deep  sympathy  for  me  in  the  struggle  I 
had  to  wage  upon  the  soil  of  Mississippi  in  1851  against 
the  efforts  then  so  fiercely  and  perseveringly  made  for  the 
disruption  of  the  Federal  Union  ;  but  it  has  been  to  me 
cause  of  unqualified  regret  that  this  gentleman  was  after 
ward  compelled  to  suffer  the  most  cruel  injustice  at  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Pierce  and  his  ill-starred  Cabinet  solely  on 
this  account,  with  whom  the  strange  and  unnatural  policy 
had  originated  of  crushing  out  Unionism  in  the  South 
and  giving  renewed  ascendency  to  the  secessionists  of 
that  region,  notwithstanding  the  solemn  finality  pledge 
which  Mr.  Pierce  had  given  before  his  nomination  as  a 
Presidential  candidate.  In  this  and  in  other  instances  of 
principle  violated,  I  thought  I  then  plainly  discerned  the 
boding  of  much  of  that  evil  which  has  since  been  expe 
rienced.  Mr.  Holt  had  made  several  able  speeches  in  sup 
port  of  Mr.  Pierce  during  the  Presidential  canvass  of  185*2. 
These  had  been  widely  circulated  and  had  proved  singu 
larly  effective ;  but  when  this  gentleman's  warm  friends 
and  admirers  in  the  Southwest — of  whom  I  was  one— 
earnestly  pressed  upon  the  President  whom  we  had  just 
elected  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Holt  to  a  foreign  mission 
of  only  secondary  grade,  it  was  discovered  that  a  malign 
and  fatal  influence  had  forced  its  way  even  into  the 
bosom  of  Mr.  Piercers  shallow  and  intriguing  Cabinet) 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  99 

which  rendered  it  alike  impossible  in  several  of  the  South 
ern  States  that  any  man  previously  appointed  to  office  hy 
Mr.  Fillmore  hy  reason  of  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the 
Union  could  remain  in  public  station,  or  that  any  promi 
nent  individual  could  receive  favor  at  the  hands  of  those 
who  were  controlling  official  patronage  who  had  been 
manly  enough  to  declare  against  the  secessionists  in  Mis 
sissippi  and  Georgia  in  the  tierce  contest  of  that  period. 
So  that  the  strange  and  monstrous  spectacle  was  exhibited 
of  a  Government  seeking  to  the  extent  of  its  ability  to 
strengthen  those  whose  parricidal  hands  had  been  so 
recently  employed  for  the  destruction  of  its  own  vitality  ! 

I  have  seldom  had  an  opportunity  of  holding  direct  per 
sonal  intercourse  with  Mr.  Holt  since  he  informed  me  by 
letter  of  the  defeat  of  the  application  made  in  his  behalf 
for  a  mission  abroad  and  the  cause  of  the  disappointment 
of  his  reasonable  expectation  in  regard  to  this  matter. 
We  have  not  exchanged  a  word  of  social  amity  in  the  last 
thirteen  years,  during  which  a  dark  and  devastating  civil 
war  has  rolled  its  waves  between  the  subject  of  this  notice 
and  his  friend  of  other  times.  I  am  rejoiced  to  know  that 
Mr.  Holt's  health  has,  since  I  saw  him  last,  been  com 
pletely  re-established ;  and  that  his  fame  is  imperishably 
interwined  with  the  honor  of  his  country.  May  he  live 
long  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of  every  kind  by  which  he 
is  encircled,  and  never  see  this  great  and  glorious  Repub 
lic  disturbed  again  as  it  lias  been  since  he  and  I  sojourned 
amicably  together  amidst  the  hills  and  valleys  of  that  far 
off  region  which  the  wickedness  and  stupidity  of  faction 
have  forever  despoiled  of  its  dignity  and  happiness ! 

I   witnessed  the  inauguration   of  Mr.  Van    Buren    in 

O 

March,  1837.  A  vast  crowd  was  in  attendance.  His 
inaugural  address  was  short,  well  worded,  and  to  the  point, 
and  seemed  to  give  satifaction  to  most  of  those  who  had 
voted  for  the  new  President.  But  even  then,  feelings  of 


100  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

dissatisfaction  in  connection  with  the  fiscal  action  of  the 
Government  and  the  general  financial  concerns  of  the 
country  were  beginning  to  disclose  themselves,  and  seemed 
to  discerning  eyes  to  bode  a  most  disastrous  defeat  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  1840. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  is  considered  to  have  evinced  much 
good  sense  in  the  selection  of  his  Cabinet,     They  were  all 
worthy  and  pure-minded  men,  and  l*ud  severally  given 
proof  of  ability  in  the  past  history  of  the  Republic.     His 
Secretary  of  State,  John  Forsyth,  of  Georgia,  was  in  many 
respects  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  to  whom  our 
country  has  at  any  time  given  birth.     He  first  saw  the 
light  on  Virginia  soil,  and  claimed,  as  I  have  heard,  the 
neighborhood  of  Fredericksburg  as  his  place  of  nativity. 
He  emigrated  to  Georgia  early,  and  had  scarcely  attained 
to  manhood  before  he  began  to  participate  in  the  public 
concerns  of  his  adopted  State.     He  was  a  lawyer  by  pro 
fession,  and  is  admitted  to  have  acquired  a  competent 
amount  of  professional  learning  at  a  very  early  period  of 
his  career,  and  to  have  shown  also  an  uncommon  aptitude 
for  politics.     lie  was  for  some  years  a  zealous  and  de 
voted  Federalist,  and,  like  Mr.  Berrien,  his  great  rival  in 
after  times,  was  kept  in  obscurity  for  some  years  by  reason 
of  that  fact.     He  was  a  warm  supporter  of  Troop  and  his 
State    rights  policy  during  the  administration    of  John 
Quincy  Adams,  but  is  said  to  have  acted  with  marked 
moderation  and  decorum  at  that  stormy  period.     He  was 
afterward  Governor  of  the  State,  and  in  1829  came  into 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  to  which  he  was  twice 
elected,  and  during  his  occupancy  of  a  seat  in  that  body 
he  exhibited  such  singular  dexterity,  readiness,  self-pos 
session,  and  vigor  in  debate  as  attracted  toward  him  in  a 
remarkable  manner  the  respect  and  affectionate  admira 
tion  of  his  fellow  citizens  of  all  parties.     Mr.  Forsyth  was 
a  man  of  most  commanding  person  ;  his  manners  were 


CASKET    OF 


eminently  polished  and  captivating;  his  personal  courage 
was  unquestionable,  and  his  integrity  was  universally 
confided  in.  Had  he  survived  a  few  years  longer  it  has 
been  supposed  by  some  that  he  would  have  attained  the 
Presidential  dignity  itself;  and  had  he  done  so  his  ad 
ministration,  I  am  confident,  would  have  constituted  "a 
bright  and  happy  period  in  our  annals  as  a  nation.  I  have 
often  heard  the  great  contest  in  1832,  at  the  capital  of 
Georgia,  between  himself  and  Mr.  Berrien,  involving  the 
question  of  nullification,  referred  to,  and  it  seems  to  have 
been  the  general  opinion  among  those  who  witnessed  it 
that  Mr.  Forsyth  was  successful  in  obtaining  a  most  signal 
triumph  over  his  accomplished  and  eloquent  antagonist. 
How  strange  it  is  that  the  monster  of  secession  should 
after  such  a  scene  as  this  have  been  able  to  dominate  over 
the  understandings  and  the  hearts  of  so  bold,  so  practical, 
and  so  patriotic  a  people  ! 


x&eirft*  OF'  REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.   XL 

ANDREW     JACKSON  —  IIENRY     CLAY  —  WASHINGTON  —  C.ESARISM. 

There  is  no  period  of  our  history  more  marked  with 
stirring  incidents,  or  more  replete  with  sound  instruction, 
to  such  as  may  be  able  to  review  in  a  calm  and  unpre 
judiced  manner  the  character  and  conduct  of  that  extra 
ordinary  man,  than  the  eight  years'  administration  of 
Andrew  Jackson.  lie  was  accustomed  to  call  it  "my 
administration  ;"  for  doing  which  certain  silly  sophisters 
and  carping  calumniators  denounced  and  ridiculed  him 
without  stint  or  decency.  Certain  it  \vas,  that  while  he 
was  the  Executive  chief  of  the  nation  he  was  "  every 
inch  "  a  President.  lie  quailed  not  before  domestic  fac 
tion  at  home  nor  growling  menaces  from  abroad,  lie  was 
ever  exerting  himself  to  find  out  what  was  right  and 
politic,  and  when  he  had  resolved  upon  any  particular 
course  he  moved  forward  firmly  and  fearlessly  in  the 
pathway  of  duty,  never  pausing  even  for  a  moment  to 
ascertain  what  malignant  factionists  said  of  him,  or  in 
what  manner  the  shallow  scribblers  for  the  daily  pi-ess 
misrepresented  and  defamed  him.  He  had  but  ore  rule 
of  action,  and  that  rule  he  found  embodied  in  the  official 
oath  which  he  had  taken.  Regarding  the  Constitution, 
and  the  laws  made  in  conformity  therewith,  together  with 
our  treaties  with  foreign  nations,  as  "  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  anything  in  the  constitutions  or  laws  of  the 
States  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding/'  lie  permitted  no 
body  of  factionists  anywhere  to  array  themselves  in  arms 
against  the  just  authority  of  the  Government.  It  was 
indeed  most  fortunate  for  the  country  that  he  was  known 
so  well  to  be  a  man  of  indomitable  courage  and  inflexible 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  103 

firmness,  for  bad  this  not  been  the  case  there  was  more 
than  one  occasion  during  his  eight  years  of  Presidential 
service  when  local  demagogues  of  the  hour  would  have 

O      O 

been  tempted  to  measure  their  strength  with  that  of  the 
Government  of  which  he  was  the  chosen  chief.  It  is  per 
fectly  well  known  to  many  that  in  1832,  when  the  2\rulli- 
ficrs  of  South  Carolina  menaced  insurrectionary  opposition 
to  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  Republic,  General 
Jackson  did  not  hesitate  openly  to  declare  his  determina 
tion  to  arrest  several  of  the  prominent  leaders  of  the  con 
templated  movement  in  Washington  city,  and  subject 
them  to  prompt  punishment  should  they  persevere  in  their 
insane  project ;  nor  is  there  much  reason  to  doubt  that 
he  would  in  a  short  time  have  proceeded  to  this  extremity 
but  for  the  interposition  of  Mr.  Clay  and  others  co-operat 
ing  with  him  at  that  period,  who  succeeded  in  bringing 
about  the  celebrated  compromise  of  1832.  I  knew  General 
Jackson  well,  and  I  am  sure  that  a  more  honest,  disin 
terested,  and  truly  patriotic  man  has  never  lived.  His 
mind  wras  active,  astute,  and  vigorous.  He  was  a  profound 
judge  of  men,  and  had  more  capacity  for  controlling  the  ac 
tion  of  those  associated  with  him  than  any  one  I  ever  knew 
lie  was  a  democratic-republican  in  principle ;  was  a  firm 
believer  in  the  capacity  of  the  American  people  for  self- 
government  ;  and  had  a  just  and  enlightened  regard  for 
all  "  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States  and  people  ;"  but 
the  fanciful  and  absurd  notion  had  never  entered  into  his 
head  that  either  the  States  or  people  had  reserved  to  them 
selves  the  right  to  set  at  naught  when  they  pleased  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Government,  or  to  break  up  a 
Union  which,  the  Articles  of  Confederation  had  declared 
to  be  u  perpetual,"  and  which  the  Constitution  afterward 
adopted  had  expressly  asserted  to  have  been  made  more 
"  perfect"  by  its  own  provisions.  The  weak  and  untena 
ble  position  that  the  government  of  a  nation  has  not  full 


104  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

right  to  coerce  obedience  to  all  its  legitimate  behests,  and 
to  use  all  needful  means  for  the  preservation  of  its  own 
vitality,  his  sound  and  discriminating  mind  could  no  more 
have  been  inclined  to  entertain  than  the  unheroicand  dis 
honoring  theory  that  a  human  being  has  no  right  to 
defend  his  own  life  against  assailment,  and  in  any  manner 
whatever  that  shall  be  found  most  convenient.  His 
demeanor  in  private  life,  as  I  personally  know,  was  always 
kind,  obliging,  and  courteous  ;  he  conversed  in  general 
with  a  modest  and  easy  familiarity,  was  always  profoundly 
courteous  to  the  gentler  sex,  and  tenderly  mindful  of  all 
who  came  into  his  own  social  circle.  There  were  subjects, 
though,  the  very  mention  of  which  always  roused  him  to 
a  pitch  of  stormy  indignation,  and  there  were  several  of 
our  eminent  public  men  in  whose  integrity  and  patriotism 
he  had  for  a  long  time  ceased  to  have  the  smallest  confi 
dence,  of  whom  he,  indeed,  occasionally  spoke  in  terms  of 
vehement  denunciation. 

It  has  always  been  quite  apparent  to  my  mind  that 
during  his  whole  Presidential  career  General  Jackson  never 
once  transcended  the  powers  clearly  allotted  to  the  Execu 
tive  Department  of  the  Government ;  though  the  peculiar 
dangers  and  difficulties  which  he  had  from  time  to  time 
to  encounter  more  than  once  constrained  him  to  resort 
to  energetic  expedients,  and  to  adopt  a  tone  and  manner 
that  called  forth  in  full  volume  the  objurgatory  malevo 
lence  of  his  foes,  who  freely  applied  to  him  epithets  that 
the  sober  pen  of  the  impartial  historian  will  not  be  found 
to  justify.  He  was  called  a  tyrant,  a  usurper,  an  imperial 
despot,  and  was  charged  with  intending  to  overthrow  the 
liberties  of  his  country.  Toward  the  close  of  his  first  term 
as  President  he  was  fiercely  accused  of  aspiring  to  a  third 
election,  and  some  affected  to  believe  that  he  would  never 
rest  satisfied  until  his  temples  should  be  encircled  with  a 
kingly  diadem.  This  truly  heroic  and  pure-minded  man 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  105 

is  reported  to  have  been  exceedingly  patient  and  self-pos 
sessed  under  this  assailment,  and  to  have  rarely  complained 
of  the  calumnies  to  which  he  was  daily  and  hourly  sub 
jected.  Doubtless  he  was  powerfully  sustained  by  the 
proud  consciousness  of  his  own  innocence,  and  by  the  con 
fidence  which  he  always  felt  in  the  good  sense  and  in  the 
generous  instincts  of  the  American  people.  lie  could  not 
but  remember,  also,  how  Washington  himself  had  been 
traduced  in  a  similar  manner,  and  IIOAV  signally  his  repu 
tation  had  triumphed  in  the  end  over  the  industrious 
malice  of  his  foes.  No  one,  I  am  certain,  now  supposes 
Andrew  Jackson  to  have  been  deficient  either  in  integrity, 
in  patriotism,  or  in  a  true  devotion  to  the  cause  of  civil 
and  religious  freedom.  'No  one  now  censures  him  for 

o 

having  used  all  his  constitutional  powers  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  Union  against  those  who  sought  so  causelessly 
in  1832  to  overthrow  it.  Nobody  now  suspects  him  to 
have  been  guilty  of  corruption,  because,  under  the  indepen 
dent  treasury  system  which  he  had  set  on  foot,  innumer 
able  defalcations  occurred  among;  such  as  were  trusted 

O 

with  the  keeping  of  the  public  money.  No  intelligent 
and  patriotic  man  now  laments  that  he  vigorously  main 
tained  the  principles  of  law  and  order  against  the  anar 
chical  attempts  made  during  his  administration  to  under 
mine  and  uproot  them.  No  man  of  sense  now  believes 
that  he  was  desirous  of  enjoying  a  third  Presidential 
term,  though  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  deem  himself 
bound,  in  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  him,  to 
make  a  premature  announcement  of  his  intention  to  retire. 
Had  he  done  so,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the 
various  factions  who  had  opposed  particular  branches  of 
his  policy,  though  differing  among  themselves  in  regard 
to  several  essential  matters,  would  have  had  it  in  their 
power  to  coalesce  for  the  defeat  of  that  very  policy.  It 
was  never  positively  known  that  Jackson  would  no^  be  a 


10()  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

candidate  for  a  third  term  until  lie  had  become  certain 
that  Martin  Van  Buren  was  almost  sure  to  be  nominated; 
who,  he  well  knew,  if  elected  to  succeed  him,  might  be 
confidently  relied  on  for  the  maintenance  of  those  princi 
ples  which  he  regarded  as  indispensable  to  the  national 
safety  and  repose.  Had  he  acted  otherwise  than  he  did 
in  reference  to  this  matter  I  should,  for  one,  have  con 
sidered  him  seriously  to  blame.  That  we  have  now  a 
republican  government  at  all  is  perhaps  owing  to  his  firm 
ness  and  resolution  at  this  delicate  and  perilous  conjunc 
ture. 

I  am  really  not  informed,  in  any  authentic  way,  that 
this  illustrious  personage  would  have  allowed  himself  to 
be  presented  for  a  third  term  under  any  circumstances.  I 
know  perfectly  well  that  he  felt  a  profound  respect  for  the 
character  and  example  of  Washington,  who  on  due  reflec 
tion  determined  to  retire  to  private  life  after  the  end  of 
his  second  term.  But  it  would  be  greatly  wronging  Gen 
eral  Jackson  not  to  admit  that  he  must  have  been  per 
fectly  aware  that  there  was  no  clause  in  the  Federal  Con 
stitution  positively  making  the  President  ineligible  for  a 
third  term.  The  fact  that  the  framers  of  that  instrument 
had,  after  the  fullest  consideration,  refused  to  adopt  such 
a  clause,  raises  an  irresistible  presumption  that  those  wise 
statesmen  foresaw  the  possibility  that  some  exigency  might 
arise  which  would  make  it  desirable  that  a  President  who 
had  served  two  terms  should  be  continued  in  office  for 
four  years  more.  What  the  nature  of  that  exigency  should 
be  which  would  justify  a  departure  from  the  example  of 
Washington  as  to  this  matter  I  am  myself  by  no  means 
prepared  to  decide;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  can  imagine  one 
which  would  have  compelled  even  Washington  himself  to 
have  become  a  Presidential  candidate  a  third  time.  Had 
he  believed  at  the  period  of  his  retirement  that  there  was 
a  political  party  in  the  United  States  in  close  alliance  with 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  107 

the  French  Jacobinical  faction,  (as  many  supposed  to  be 
the  case  in  1796,)  and  that  this  party  would  succeed  in 
electing  some  such  person  as  Robespierre,  Danton,  or 
Marat  to  the  office  of  President,  unless  he  should  himself 
consent  to  enter  the-field  against  him,  I  do  not  at  all  doubt 
that  Washington  would  have  felt  it  his  duty  to  forego 
his  own  ease  and  happiness  in  order  to  secure  his  country 
from  the  evils  which  the  elevation  of  such  a  monster  would 
inevitably  have  brought  upon  it:  I  conjecture  that  Jack 
son  would  have  acted  in  the  same  manner  had  he  seen 
any  such  evils  likely  to  arise  in  consequence  of  his  with 
drawing  altogether  from  the  political  arenp..  So  again,  I 
fancy,  would  it  have  been  with  the  mild  and  unambitious 
Madison  himself  had  he  seen  the  Federal  party,  with  all 
its  sins  of  the  war  of  1812-'15  upon  its  head,  about  to 
organize  anew  for  the  purpose  of  electing  some  anti-war 
man  of  the  Hartford  Convention  stamp  to  the  Presiden 
tial  office,  under  whose  rule  a  new  series  of  alien  and  sedi 
tion  acts  and  other  legislative  enormities  might  perchance 
be  attempted,  and  could  he  have  been  in  addition  satisfied 
that  no  man  thoroughly  identified  with  the  war  of  that 
period  except  himself  would  be  strong  enough  successfully 
to  resist  the  reactionary  tide.  Let  the  Wash iingtonian  rule 
be  as  sacred  as  any  one  may  choose  to  consider  it,  (and 
surely  I  do  not  at  all  underrate  that  sacredness,)  yet  I 
opine  that  this,  like  all  other  general  rules,  would  be  sub 
ject  to  that  rule  above  rules,  exceptio  probat  regulam. 

Thank  Heaven,  the  hero  of  the  Hermitage  was  saved 
from  this  fearful  test,  for  he  was  able,  without  resorting 
to  means  at  all  questionable,  to  secure  the  casting  of  the 
Presidential  mantle  upon  the  shoulders  of  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
and,  ere  he  took  leave  of  public  li'fe  forever,  had  the  grati 
fication  of  hearing  from  the  lips  of  this  gentleman  before 
a  hundred  thousand  citizens  that  celebrated  pledge  that  in 
performing  the  Presidential  functions  he  "  would  tread 
generally  in  the  footsteps  of  his  illustrious  predecessor;" 


108  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

so  that  Jackson  was  able  to  return  to  his  own  quiet  home 
in  Tennessee  with  the  conviction  resting  upon  his  mind 
that  he  had  left  "this  great  Republic  prosperous  and 
happy."  There  he  lived  for  eight  years  more,  surrounded 
by  all  that  could  render  his  declining  years  peaceful  and 
.contented. 

No  two  public  men  in  the  United  States  were,  perhaps, 
more  hostile  to  each  other  for  many  years  than  were  Henry 
Clay  and  Andrew  Jackson,  and  yet  were  they  strikingly 
alike  in  some  of  their  leading  attributes.  They  were  both 
men  of  warm  temperament,  brave  almost  to  a  fault,  patri 
otic,  devoted  to  their  friends,  truthful,  honest,  lovers  of 
their  kind,  staunch  supporters  of  the  Union,  and  willing 
to  make  almost  any  sacrifice  for  the  maintenance  of  repub 
lican  institutions. 

I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  record  here  that  they 
were  cordially  reconciled  before  leaving  the  troublous 
stage  of  action  whereupon  each  of  them  had  borne  so  dis 
tinguished  and  so  meritorious  a  part.  This  much  I  can 
with  truth  state,  as  being  within  my  own  knowledge,  that 
when,  in  1850,  citizens  of  the  Democratic  faith  from  re 
mote  sections  of  the  country  beset  Mr.  Clay  for  the  pur 
pose  of  cheering  him  on  in  the  patriotic  labors  that  were 
then  imperiling  his  life,  they  often  said  to  him,  with  tears 
in  their  eyes,  U0h,  Mr.  Clay,  how  much  you  remind  us  of 
the  lamented  Jackson !"  Xor  did  this  sort  of  salutation 
prove  unpleasant  to  him  who  was  the  recipient  of  it;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  he  always  expressed  himself  on  such 
occasions  as  exceedingly  gratified. 

It  is  known  to  many  that  Mr.  Madison  first  tendered 
the  commission  of  major  general,  afterward  bestowed  on 
General  Jackson,  to  Mr.  Clay.  Had  he  accepted  it  and 
fought  successfully  the  battle  of  New  Orleans,  as  he  doubt 
less  would  have  done,  how  different  might  have  been  his 
own  political  fortunes,  and  how  different  the  history  of 
our  country ! 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  109 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XII. 

JAMES    BUCHANAN — ROBERT    J.  WALKER — JACOB    THOMPSON- 
WILLIAM    M.    GWIN — STEPHEN    A.    DOUGLAS. 

The  sectional  agitation  which  Mr.  Pierce's  Administra 
tion  had,  despite  all  the  pledges  by  which  it  was  hound, 
managed  to  call  forth  anew,  was  raging  with  much  vio 
lence  when  Mr.  Buchanan  came  into  the  Presidential 
office.  This  latter  gentleman  having  been  for  several 
years  abroad  had  been  able  to  keep  his  mind  free  from 
all  the  excitements  of  the  period,  and  having  good  reason 
for  believing  that  Mr.  Pierce's  failure  to  obtain  a  renomi- 
nation  had  been  greatly  owing  to  his  indiscreet,  and 
indeed  unpardonable,  discussion  in  his  messages  and 
otherwise  of  the  dangerous  questions  put  to  rest  by  the 
compromise  settlement  of  1850,  it  would  have  been, 
indeed,  surprising  had  he  at  once  proceeded  to  imitate  the 
ill  example  of  his  discredited  predecessor.  The  inaugural 
address  which  he  enunciated  was  pre-eminently  moderate 
and  conservative  in  its  tone,  and  was  calculated  to  awaken 
new  hope  of  the  restoration  of  peace  and  tranquillity. 
The  National  Intelligencer  hailed  this  address  most  rejoic 
ingly,  and  proclaimed  to  the  country  that  if  the  new 
President  should  carry  out  faithfully  and  persistently  the 
views  which  he  had  just  promulgated  it  would  be  the 
duty  of  all  the  true  friends  of  the  Union  to  yield  to  him  a 
zealous  and  efficient  support.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  view 
entertained  by  patriotic  and  enlightened  minds  every 
where  ;  and  that  considerable  body  of  patriotic  and 
enlightened  voters  who  had  sustained  Mr.  Fillrnore  in  the 
Presidential  contest  of  1856  almost  unanimously  declared 
their  determination  to  present  no  opposition  to  Mr. 
Buchanan's  Administration  so  lon<r  as  he  should  continue 

o 


110  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

to  show  himself  alike  exempt  from  free-soil  extremism 
and  the  equally  dangerous  dogma  of  pro-slavery  propa- 
gandism.  Never  was  a  President  of  the  United  States 
more  favorably  situated  than  wras  Mr.  Buchanan  in  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1857  for  conducting  the  Govern 
ment  upon  broad,  national  principles,  and  securing  to 
himself  the  glory  of  permanently  pacificating  a  long  dis 
tracted  country.  That  such  was  his  original  ambition  and 
aim  I  have  never  at  all  doubted  ;  and  his  well-known 
instructions  to  Governor  Walker,  whom  he  had  dis 
patched  to  Kansas  for  the  purpose  of  harmonizing  the 
elements  of  discord  there,  then  in  active  fermentation, 
gave  most  gratifying  assurance  to  all  the  lovers  of  peace 
and  political  brotherhood  that,  come  what  might,  the 
influence  of  the  Government  would  never  be  wielded  for 
the  encouragement  of  sectional  factions  of  any  name  or 
complexion,  but  be  used  for  the  upholding  of  the  funda- 
mental«prineiple  of  self-government  which  our  fathers  had 
established,  even  by  the  outpouring  of  their  own  precious 
life-blood. 

In  order  to  understand  the  causes  of  Mr.  Buchanan's 
sudden  and  most  lamentable  departure  from  the  line  of 
policy  which  he  had  prescribed  to  himself  in  the  outset  of 
his  presidential  career,  it  will  be  necessary  for  a  moment 
to  examine,  in  a  spirit  of  dispassionate  scrutiny,  some  of 
the  qualities  which  entered  into  the  composition  of  his 
own  remarkable  character,  and  to  pass  rapidly  in  review, 
also,  the  peculiar  obstacles  which  he  very  soon  found  to 
beset  his  pathway. 

I  knew  James  Buchanan  for  many  years,  and  inti 
mately.  During  Mr.  Folk's  excellent  and  very  successful 
administration  many  occurrences  took  place  which  of 
necessity  brought  Mr.  Buchanan  and  myself  into  close  and 
familiar  contact.  Having  been  twice  elected  by  the 
National  Senate  to  the  position  of  chairman  of  the* 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  Ill 

Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  I  had  to  consult  with  him 
often  and  in  the  most  confidential  manner.  He  professed 
to  entertain  for  me  a  warm  personal  friendship,  and  I 
never  had  reason  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  his  professions 
in  this  regard.  I  had  every  opportunity,  alike  in  private 
life  and  amid  the  turmoil  and  excitement  of  political  con 
troversy,  to  learn  his  real  temper  and  character,  so  as  now 
to  he  able  to  speak  of  them  with  something  approaching 
to  authority.  lie  was  undoubtedly  a  man  of  solid  and 
vigorous  intellect,  without  having  the  least  claim,  though, 
to  be  ranked  as  a  man  of  genius.  He  was  said,  (and  so  I 
suppose  the  fact  to  have  been,)  to  be  accurately  informed 
in  the  legal  profession,  and  well  adapted  to  all  the  ordi 
nary  duties  of  a  provincial  American  advocate,  though 
no  one  would,  1  am  certain,  have  thought  of  claiming  for 
him  a  profound  acquaintance  with  jurisprudential  science, 
or  have  expected  from  him  a  great  and  luminous  argu 
ment  upon  legal  questions  of  particular  difficulty  and  per 
plexity,  and  especially  of  such  as  had  not  been  already 
made  the  subject  of  repeated  adjudication.  His  knowl 
edge  of  the  ancient  classic  writers  was  exceedingly  imper 
fect,  and  he  was  far  from  being  at  all  familiar  with  any 
of  the  renowned  British  authors  who,  in  prose  and  verse, 
have  filled  up  the  space  of  years  between  Chaucer  and 
Macauley.  When  a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  though  his  intellectual  powers  must  have  been 
then  in  their  prime,  he  was  not  known  to  deliver  a  single 
speech  remarkable  either  for  eloquence,  for  potential  rea 
soning,  or  for  valuable  practical  illustration.  He  was 
notably  deficient  both  in  ingenuity  and  in  rhetorical  bril 
liancy.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  uttered  a  genuine  witticism 
in  his  life ;  though,  on  social  occasions,  he  was  often  more 
or  less  facetious,  and,  in  what  Dryden  calls  "  the  horse 
play  of  raillery,"  was  indeed  quite  an  adept.  Nobody, 
though,  ever  heard  him  talk  stupidly  or  ignorantly  ;  and 


112  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

whenever  a  subject  chanced  to  be  introduced  with  which 
he  felt  himself  to  be  unacquainted  he  had  the  good  sense 
to  be  obdurately  and  unmovedly  silent.  He  was  far  from 
being  one  of  those  who  "wear  their  hearts  upon  their 
sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at ;"  in  colloquial  scenes  he  very 
rarely  expressed  his  opinions  at  all  upon  disputed  ques 
tions,  except  in  language  especially  marked  with  a  cau 
tious  circumspection  almost  amounting  to  timidity.  In 
the  ordinary  scenes  of  social  life  he  was  exceedingly  sim 
ple  and  unassuming,  exhibiting  occasionally,  but  never  in 
a  positively  offensive  manner,  a  sort  of  blunt  and  home 
spun  frankness  and  familiarity  which  many  persons  found 
more  or  less  agreeable. 

That  he  was  himself  a  man  of  inflexible  integrity  I  do 
not  think  admits  of  question  ;  though  it  is  yet  not  alto 
gether  forgotten,  and  perhaps  never  will  be,  that  in  the 
earlier  part  of  his  political  career  he  had  been  known  once 
or  twice  to  have  become  involved  in  perplexing  predica 
ments  which  exposed  him  to  the  suspicion  of  being  a  little 
insincere  and  ambidextrous  in  matters  of  political  manage 
ment.  Fame  had  lon^  set  down  Mr.  Buchanan  as  bavins; 

o  o 

been  a  Federalist  in  the  days  of  his  opening  manhood; 
but  this  charge  he  had  always  positively  denied,  and  was 
accustomed  to  refer  those  who  inquired  of  him  relative  to 
tli is  matter  to  what  he  deemed  a  decisive  negative  fact— 
that  he  had  marched  as  a  common  soldier  from  Lancaster 
to  Baltimore  for  the  defense  of  that  city  from  British 
invaders  in  the  war  of  1812-'15.  He  had  long  been  desir 
ous  of  reaching  the  Presidential  station  ;  had  once  or 
twice  actively,  but  unsuccessfully,  sought  a  conventional 
nomination  ;  and  was  perhaps  at  last  indebted  for  his 
being  selected  as  the  chief  standard-bearer  of  the  Democ 
racy  to  the  fact  that  his  long  absence  from  the  United 
States  was  supposed  to  have  neutralized  ancient  antipa 
thies  in  his  own  bosom,  and  to  have  saved  him  from  the 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  113 

discrediting  responsibilities  of  Mr.  Pierce's  egregious  mal 
administration. 

Mr.  Buchanan  had  always  professed  to  hold  in  great 
horror  the  doctrines  of  the  extreme  State's  rights  school 
of  the  South  ;  had  often  ridiculed,  even  on  public  occa 
sions,  the  far-famed  resolutions  of  '98,  and  professed  an 
ardent  love  of  the  National  Union,  which  sentiment  he 
doubtless  felt.  I  very  well  recollect  that  he  wrote  to  me 
an  earnest  and  patriotic  letter  in  the  autumn  of  1849,  in 
favor  of  the  Missouri  compromise  as  a  basis  of  settlement 
applicable,  as  he  thought,  to  the  questions  then  engaging 
the  public  attention,  and  that  he  wrote  another  letter  dur 
ing  the  summer  of  1850  in  full  approval  of  the  plan  of 
adjustment  then  before  Congress.  But  he  had,  in  some 
way,  learned  to  dread  the  fierce  audacity  of  the  Southern 
fire-eaters,  as  he  was  accustomed  to  call  them,  and  it  sev 
eral  times  became  obvious  to  me,  long  before  he  fell  under 
their  domination  in  1860,  that  his  fear  of  the  leaders  of 
this  blustrous  and  menacing  faction  was  not  wholly 
unmixed  with  something  of  a  respectful  admiration. 

He  was,  as  a  general  thing,  exceedingly  truthful  and 
confiding,  and  delighted  more  than  any  public  man  I  have 
known  in  what  is  sometimes  called  u  cronyship,"  but, 
unfortunately,  selected  often  as  the  special  partners  of  his 
counsels  men  of  very  small  mental  caliber  and  who  had 
recommended  themselves  to  his  regard  mainly  by  their 
adroitness  in  the  arts  of  adulation,  to  the  influence  of 
which  arts  he  was  indeed  most  lamentably  open.  It  is  a 
fact  perfectly  well  known  to  me  that  General  Cass,  who 
occupied  under  his  administration  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  State,  and  whose  accomplishments  and  prolonged  public 
experience,  no  less  than  the  honesty  of  his  nature  and  his 
extraordinary  powers  of  intellect,  should  have  commanded 
for  his  opinions  the  most  profound  deference,  had  far  less 
influence  over  Mr.  Buchanan's  official  action  thanllowell 
8u 


114  CASKET    Otf    REMINISCENCES. 

Cobb  or  Jacob  Thompson — a  fact  wbich  of  itself  speaks 
volumes  in  explanation  of  those  prodigious  blunders  which 
were  soon  to  render  the  close  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  Presi 
dential  term  the  most  melancholy  period  in  our  annals. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  I  reached  Washington  from 
California,  where  I  had  been  sojourning  for  four  years, 
and  found  Mr.  Buchanan  and  his  Cabinet  in  a  very 
excited  and  anxious  state  touching  the  troubles  then  in 
progress  in  Kansas.  Governor  Walker  had  been  there 
carrying  faithfully  into  operation  the  instructions  under 
which  he  had  been  sent  to  that  region,  which  instructions 
Mr.  Buchanan  had  even  drawn  up  in  his  own  hand 
writing. 

O 

In  further  explanation  of  this  matter  I  will  call  to  the 
notice  of  those  who  are  honoring  these  reminiscences  with 
a  perusal  a  short  extract  from  a  volume  which  I  published 
seven  years  ago,  none  of  the  material  statements  con 
tained  in  which  have  ever  yet  been,  so  far  at  least  as  I  am 
informed,  at  all  impugned: 

"Just  about  this  time  certain  leading  politicians  in 
Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  South  Carolina  commenced  a 
course  of  open  and  unmeasured  denunciation  of  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  on  account  of  his  having  sent  Governor  Walker 
to  Kansas,  and  on  account  of  the  acts  of  this  latter  per 
sonage  as  Governor  of  the  Territory,  charging  the  Presi 
dent  with  the  basest  ingratitude  to  the  Southern  States 
and  people,  to  whose  support  they  asserted  him  to  have 
chiefly  owed  his  elevation,  and  menacing  him  in  addition 
with  such  opposition  in  Congress  and  elsewhere  as  would 
speedily  bring  him  to  punishment  for  the  gross  infidelity 
which  they  accused  him  of  having  exhibited  toward  his 
political  benefactors.  Fearing  very  seriously  the  ett'ect 
of  these  movements  upon  Mr.  Buchanan,  whom  I  well 
knew  to  be  morbidly  sensitive  to  public  reproach,  and 
solicitous,  beyond  the  wise  sedateness  of  statesmanship, 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  115 

to  please  everybody,  I  had  now  visited  Washington,  hop 
ing  there  to  find  out  whether  there  was  any  likelihood  of 
the  administration's  recoiling  from  the  attitude  which  it 
then  occupied.  There  I  soon  learned,  from  the  lips  of 
Mr.  Jacob  Thompson  and  others,  that  though  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  had  been  much  galled  and  mortified  by  the  course 
pursued  toward  him  in  the  Southern  States,  he  was  re 
solved  to  stand  firmly  by  Governor  Walker  and  non-in 
tervention  in  Kansas,  whatever  might  be  the  consequences 
of  his  doing  so  to  himself  personally,  or  to  the  future 
prosperity  of  his  administration.  Mr.  Thompson  having 
himself  expressed  strong  fears  that  in  the  Southwest,  par 
ticularly  in  Mississippi  and  the  adjoining  States,  Senators 
Davis  and  Brown,  and  others  in  alliance  with  them, 
might  succeed,  if  not  promptly  counteracted,  in  mislead 
ing  their  fellow-citizens  touching  the  Kansas  imbroglio,  I 
volunteered  to  go  in  that  direction  myself,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  employing  such  influence  as  might  yet  remain  to 
me,  after  a  four  years'  absence,  in  furthering  a  cause 
which  I  had  ever  had  so  much  at  heart.  I  set  out  ac 
cordingly,  and  journeyed  at  once  to  the  city  of  Memphis, 
where,  being  invited  to  address  my  fellow-citizens,  I  at 
tended  a  large  popular  assemblage,  convoked  under  the 
auspices  of  the  most  influential  public  persons  in  that 
vicinage,  over  which  the  eminently  patriotic  ex-Governor 
Jones  presided,  and  in  a  harangue  of  several  hours'  dura 
tion  I  called  the  attention  of  those  present  to  the  then  ex 
isting  condition  of  public  affairs,  and  labored  to  show 
them  that  it  was  the  true  policy  of  the  South,  as  of  the 
whole  country  besides,  to  yield  to  Mr.  Buchanan  the 
most  zealous  and  unremitting  support  at  that  perilous 
conjuncture.  The  address  which  I  delivered  on  this  oc 
casion,  with  the  evidences  of  popular  approval  which  the 
suggestions  embodied  therein  had  elicited,  in  manner  and 
form  precisely  as  the  same  were  set  forth  in  the  news- 


116  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

papers  of  the  vicinage,  I  took  occasion  to  transmit  direct 
ly  to  Washington  for  Mr.  Buchanan's  examination,  and 
quickly  moved  on  to  the  capital  of  Mississippi,  confidently 
expecting  there  to  obtain  a  similar  indorsement  of  the 
non-intervention  attitude  of  the  administration.  On 
reaching  this  place,  and  on  learning  that  the  two  Missis 
sippi  Senators,  Messrs.  Davis  and  Brown,  had  both  ad 
dressed  a  large  public  meeting  at  the  Capitol  the  evening 
before  my  arrival  in  Jackson,  and  that  each  of  these  gen 
tlemen  had  denounced  Mr.  Buchanan  in  unmeasured 
terms,  I  accepted  an  invitation  to  speak  at  the  same 
place  the  very  evening  after;  having  done  which,  and 
having  procured  similar  testimonials  of  approval  of  the 
President  and  his  non-intervention  policy  as  I  had  ob 
tained  at  Memphis,  I  forwarded  these  also  to  Washing- 
ton  to  the  address  of  the  Hon.  William  M.  Gwin,  then  in 
that  city,  to  be  handed  over  to  Mr.  Buchanan  for  his  en 
couragement.  It  was  unfortunately  of  no  avail  that 
these  efforts  to  reassure  Mr.  Buchanan  were  at  that  time 
essayed  by  myself  and  others;  he  had  already  become 
thoroughly  panic-stricken;  the  bowlings  of  the  bull-dog 
of  secession  had  fairly  frightened  him  out  of  his  wits,  and 
he  ingloriously  resolved  to  yield  without  further  resist 
ance  to  the  decrial  and  villification  to  which  he  had  been 
so  acrimoniously  subjected.  In  point  of  fact,  a  week  or 
two  thereafter  the  Hon.  Glancy  Jones,  of  Pennsylvania, 
a  well-known  and  confidential  friend  of  Mr.  Buchanan, 
published  in  the  newspapers  a  letter  in  which  the  first 
significant  foreshadowings  appeared  of  the  President's 
determination  to  go  over — horse,  foot,  and  dragoons — to 
the  secession  faction." 

In  common  with  thousands  of  others  I  had  now  be 
come  seriously  alarmed  at  the  condition  of  the  country. 
L  knew  well  that  a  scheme  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Union  had  been  long  on  foot  in  the  South.  I  knew  quite 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  117 

as  well  that  the  leaders  of  this  movement  were  only  wait 
ing  for  the  enfeebling  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the 
North,  and  the  general  triumph  of  Free-soilism  as  a  con 
sequence  thereof,  to  alarm  the  whole  South  into  acqui 
escence,  in  their  policy.  I  was  satisfied  that  if  that  most 
unwise  and  corrupt  measure,  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
should  be  approved  in  Congress,  on  the  recommendation 
of  Mr.  Buchanan  and  by  the  votes  of  Democratic  members 
of  Congress,  the  Democratic  organization  in  the  States  of 
the  North,  already  sadly  weakened  and  demoralized  by  the 
causes  heretofore  enumerated,  would  forever  lose  its 
power  for  usefulness,  and  dwindle  into  just  such  a 
wretched  and  discordant  faction  as  it  has  ever  been  since. 
I  felt,  as  many  other  persons  felt  also,  that  the  attempt 
now  making  in  Congress  to  force  through  the  infamous 
Lecompton  bill  would  permanently  dishonor  the  South, 
which  would  now,  for  the  first  time  in  her  history,  be 
justly  accused  of  having  given  her  deliberate  sanction  to 
a  trickish  and  dishonest  attempt  to  fasten  slavery  upon 
an  unwrilling  and  fiercely-resisting  people  by  a  fraud 
which  no  one  could  deny  to  have  been  perpetrated. 
With  such  views  and  feelings  I  visited  Washington  dur 
ing  the  session  of  Congress  of  1857-'58,  and  immediately 
had  recourse  to  General  Cass  and  others  Avho  stood  high 
in  my  confidence,  and  protested  solemnly  against  the 
action  which  has  just  been  described.  General  Cass  at 
once  confessed,  frankly,  his  entire  condemnation  of  Mr. 
Buchanan's  conduct  in  the  Lecompton  matter,  and  earn 
estly  besought  me  to  go  at  once  to  him  and  remonstrate 
solemnly  against  his  further  perseverance  in  the  mad 
course  which  he  had  been  induced  to  adopt.  This  I,  of 
course,  declined  doing  unless  the  President  should  do  me 
the  honor  of  asking  my  advice,  which  I  felt  it  to  be  cer 
tain  that  he  would  never  think  of. 

Thus,  by  this  most  disgraceful  procedure,  and  several 


118  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

others  of  a  kindred  cast,  adopted  at  that  period,  did  the 
Democratic  party  forever  lose  its  dignity  as  a  great 
national  organization  and  sink  down  into  a  mere  sectional 
faction,  powerless  for  all  real  good,  yet  fearfully  potential 
for  evil. 

There  are  one  or  two  incidents  of  this  period  which  I 
will  relate  here  as  strikingly  illustrative  of  the  condi 
tion  of  things  then  existing.  I  went  one  day  into  the 
Department  of  the  Treasury  on  official  husiness.  When 
this  had  been  concluded,  Ilowell  Cobb  turned  to  me  and 
said  that  he  hoped  I  would  do  what  I  could  to  aid  the 
Administration  in  carrying  through  Congress  the  Le- 
compton  bill.  I  asked  him  what  prospect  there  was  of 
its  being  adopted.  To  which  he  responded  briskly :  "Oh, 
I  think  that  we  shall  get  it  through.  We  have  now  se 
cured  almost  as  many  votes  as  will  be  necessary  to  its 
passage ;  and  you  know  that  this  Department  is  always, 
in  such  a  struggle,  good  for  at  least  twenty  votes." 
"Great  God  !"  I  said,  "and  has  the  Democratic  party  sunk 
so  low  as  to  seek  to  procure  the  adoption  of  a  measure 
notoriously  corrupt  in  itself  by  administering  official 
bribes  to  the  trusted  representatives  of  the  people?"  This 
was  the  last  familiar  conversation  I  ever  held  with  this 
once  loved  and  respected  citizen  of  Georgia. 

A  night  or  two  after  I  chanced  to  attend  a  party  at 
the  house  of  the  British  Minister.  I  was  passing  through 
one  of  the  most  crowded  rooms,  when  I  saw  a  special 
coterie  engaged  in  animated  conversation.  The  distin 
guished  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  then  Attorney  General,  was 
one  of  the  group,  and  the  lamented  Mrs.  Greenough  an 
other.  As  I  passed,  this  good  lady  called  to  me  and  said: 
"We  are  discussing  a  question,  Governor,  in  relation  to 
which  I  should  like  to  know  your  opinion.  I  am  insist 
ing  that  Mr.  Buchanan  ought  to  be  brought  forward  a 
second  time  for  the  Presidency;  what  think  you  as  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  119 

this  matter  ?"  To  which  I  responded,  I  fear,  in  a  style  a 
little  too  abrupt :  "Why,  madam,  Mr.  Buchanan  may  be 
entitled  in  the  estimation  of  his  admiring  friends  to  a  re- 
nomination,  but  could  he  with  honor  accept  it,  having 
heretofore  given  a  deliberate  and  public  pledge  not  to  al 
low  his  name  thus  to  be  made  use  of?" 

After  Mr.  Buchanan  had  sent  into  Congress  two 
several  messages  earnestly  recommending  to  that  body 
the  ratification  of  the  Lecompton  swindle,  he  began  to 
grow  exceedingly  restless  and  uneasy,  and  I  conversed 
with  more  than  a  dozen  members  of  Congress,  who  in 
formed  me  that  they  had  just  come  from  the  White 
House,  where  the  anxious  President  had  urged  them,  in 
language  almost  of  imprecation,  for  God's  sake  not  to  for 
sake  him  and  the  true  Democratic  cause  at  this  crisis.  I 
heard  from  the  lips  of  the  brilliant  and  eccentric  Mr. 
Toombs,  about  this  period,  a  rather  amusing  anecdote, 
alike  illustrative  of  the  uneasiness  of  Mr.  Buchanan  as  to 
the  fate  of  this  pet  scheme  of  his  in  Congress,  and  of  his 
ingenuity  in  devising  new  schemes  for  the  strengthening 
of  his  position.  Mr.  Toombs  said  that  a  few  days  before 
he  had  visited  the  Presidential  Mansion,  when  the  con 
versation  chancing  to  turn  upon  the  troubles  then  exist 
ing  in  Congress  the  poor  President  said:  "Mr.  Toombs, 
when  I  was  a  member  of  Congress  some  years  ago,  and  the 
Democratic  party  was  at  any  time  hard  pressed,  we  always 
went  into  a  caucus,  where  it  was  ever  found  quite  easy  to  re 
concile  discordances  and  secure  a  union  of  party  strength. 
Why  do  you  not  call  a  Democratic  caucus  in  Congress  now? 
I  am  certain  that  it  would  be  attended  with  exceedingly 
beneficial  effects." 

"Oh !"  responded  the  ever-facetious  Toombs,  "Oh,  Mr. 
President,  you  have  evidently  forgotten  my  own  political 
history  a  little.  When  I  came  first  into  Congress  as  a 
Senator,  a  few  years  ago,  I  did  so  as  a  Union  Whig.  I 


120  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

could  not,  therefore,  you  know,  with  any  appearance  of 
propriety,  go  into  a  strictly  Democratic  caucus  until  the 
expiration  of  my  present  Senatorial  term.  I  have  been 
recently  elected  for  a  new  term  of  six  years  by  Demo 
cratic  votes.  This  term  will  commence  on  the  coming 
4th  of  March.  Wait  patiently,  I  pray  you,  for  a  few 
weeks,  and  I  promise  to  be  as  good  a  caucus  Democrat  as 
ever  yon  heard  of." 

On  a  cold  and  bright  Sunday  morning,  the  very  day 
before  I  left  Washington  for  the  South,  I  met  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  on  the  street-side.  He  was  just  returning  from 
Senator  Bright's  on  foot,  whither  he  had  escorted  his 
charming  daughter  from  church.  lie  was  looking  very 
well,  and  seemed  quite  cheerful.  He  advanced  and 
saluted  me  quite  cordially,  and  complained  that  I  had 
not  been  to  see  him.  To  which  I  answered:  "Mr.  Presi 
dent,  I  should,  under  circumstances  a  little  different  from 
those  now  existing,  have  delighted  to  call  upon  you." 
I  added,  "Mr.  President,  I  shall  be  off*  for  the  South  to 
morrow,  and  I  wish  I  could  return  to  my  own  home  with 
out  carrying  with  me  feelings  of  great  uneasiness  in  re 
gard  to  the  condition  of  the  country.  I  fear  that  this 
Lecompton  experiment  has  been  fatal  to  the  Democratic 
organization  of  the  North ;  that  the  Republican  party 
will  signally  triumph  in  the  Presidential  election  of  I860, 
and  that  the  secession  leaders  of  the  South,  with  whom 
you  now  seem  to  be  in  close  alliance,  will  sieze  the  op 
portunity  which  will  be  then  afforded  them  of  attempting 
to  destroy  the  Union.  Mr.  President,  I  know  the  men 
upon  whom  you  are  now  relying  better  than  you  do ;  as 
sure  as  there  is  a  God  in  Heaven  you  will  be  compelled 
to  fight  against  them  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Gov 
ernment  itself  before  your  term  of  Presidential  duty  shall 
have  drawn  to  a  close." 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  121 

He  responded,  evidently  with  much  embarrassment, 
pretty  much  as  follows  : 

uLet  me  say  to  you,  sir,  in  frankness,  that  should  such 
dangers  arise  as  those  to  which  you  refer,  I  shall  know 
how  to  do  my  duty.  In  1852  I  sought  the  Presidential 
nomination  at  the  hands  of  the  Democratic  party.  In 
1856  this  nomination  sought  me.  I  made  no  effort  to 
procure  it.  My  position  is  therefore  one  of  independence, 
and  should  any  body  of  men  anywhere  attempt  to  subvert 
this  Government  whose  executive  chief  I  am,  I  shall  know 
well  how  to  deal  with  them,  and  the  whole  Republic  will 
iind  me  religiously  faithful  to  the  great  trust  with  which 
I  have  been  invested."  I  replied  :  "I  doubt  not  the  good 
ness  of  your  intentions ;  I  trust  that  you  will  prove  in  all 
respects  equal  to  the  perilous  conjuncture  which  I  am 
sure  is  not  far  distant ;  but  I  fear  much  that  you  are  con 
fiding  in  the  friendship  and  integrity  of  some  who  will 
fail  you  when  the  moment  of  greatest  danger  shall  ar 
rive." 

So  saying,  I  bade  him  good-by,  never  to  see  him  more 
on  this  side  the  grave. 

What  difficulties  he  had  afterward  to  encounter ;  how 
he  joined  at  the  White  House,  a  month  or  two  after,  in 
the  silly  rejoicings  which  there  took  place  over  the  adop 
tion  of  what  was  called  the  English  bill ;  how  he  openly 
took  part  in  the  efforts  made  in  Illinois  to  defeat  Mr. 
Douglas  ;  how  he  yielded  his  countenance  to  the  proceed 
ings  in  the  Charleston  convention,  which  fatally  broke 
up  the  unity  of  the  Democratic  party  ;  how  he  gave  his 
indirect  sanction  to  that  monstrous  alteration  in  the 
national  Democratic  platform,  confessedly  intended  to 
give  to  slavery  an  "aggressive  attitude ;"  how  he  enter 
tained  in  the  White  House  the  secession  leaders  when 
they  were  on  their  way  to  Baltimore,  after  they  had  dis 
gracefully  abandoned  their  seats  in  the  Charleston  con- 


122  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

vcntion,  because  of  the  nomination  of  the  high-souled 
and  heroic  Douglas;  how  the  attempt  was  made  in 
Charleston  by  the  opponents  of  this  noble  martyr  to  the 
cause  of  principle  to  call  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Union 
the  man  who  in  1851  had  arduously  sought  to  destroy 
this  Government,  and  who  was  known  to  all  the  world 
to  be  thoroughly  committed  to  the  fearful  dogma  of  se 
cession  ;  how  several  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  Cabinet  after 
ward  aided  in  the  secret  concoction  of  a  scheme  for  the 
overthrow  of  a  Government  with  which  they  had  a  close 
official  connection,  and  co-operated  in  an  effort  to  murder 
that  sacred  Constitution  which  they  had  solemnly  sworn 
to  support ;  how  Mr.  Buchanan  himself  was  persuaded 
in  gloriously  to  relinquish  all  attempts  to  maintain  the 
authority  which  had  been  intrusted  to  him,  on  the  ab 
surd  ground  that  the  Government  founded  by  our  sage 

CD  •/  O 

forefathers  had  been  given  no  power  of  self-protection 
against  lawless  and  unprovoked  violence,  are  matters 
which  already  belong  to  history  and  which  the  bloody 
occurrences  of  a  fratricidal  war  have  engraved  in  char- 

O 

acters  more  durable  than  brass  itself  upon  the  hearts  and 
understandings  of  all  America. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  123 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XIII. 

WM.      II.      SEWARD — ABRAHAM      LINCOLN — CHARLES      FRANCIS 

ADAMS. 

I  have  arrived  at  a  very  interesting  point  in  the  history 
of  the  past.  A  very  striking  and  peculiar  character  now 
comes  up  for  our  special  observation.  Few  men  have 
done  or  said  more  to  secure  the  lasting  remembrance  of 
mankind,  either  for  the  good  that  he  did  or  the  good  that 
he  failed  to  accomplish,  than  William  H.  Seward.  I  was 
well  acquainted  with  him,  without  ever  having  possessed, 
his  full  confidence,  and  without  ever  having  desired  to 
possess  it.  I  was  never  his  personal  enemy.  The  rela 
tions  existing  between  us  never  rose  to  the  dignity  of 
friendship.  I  always  looked  upon  him  as  a  considerable 
figure  upon  the  picture  of  political  and  social  life  in  this 
country.  I  regarded  him  as  a  man  of  many  peculiarities? 
and  made  him  a  special  object  of  my  study  from  the 
moment  of  my  being  introduced  to  him  on  a  steamboat 
descending  the  North  river,  in  New  York,  up  to  the  period 
of  his  departure  from  the  realms  of  mortality. 

I  shall  speak  of  him  as  I  think,  and  as  I  have  continu 
ously  thought  of  him  now  for  twenty-five  years,  "  neither 
extenuating  nor  setting  down  aught  in  malice,"  being 
duly  mindful  of  the  words  of  Antony  over  the  dead  body 
of  the  murdered  Julius:  "  The  evil  which  men  do  lives 
after  them  ;  the  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones.  So 
let  it  be  with  Oesar  !" 

William  H.  Seward  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best 
educated  young  men  on  this  continent  when  lie  left  his 
father's  home  for  the  sunny  plains  of  Georgia,  and  he  there 
discharged  the  duties  of  a  vocation  held  in  peculiar  honor 
in  all  truly  civilized  and  refined  communities  under  the 


124  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

sun.  I  luive  never  doubted  that  lie  himself  derived  as 
much  of  improvement  from  his  occupation  as  a  school 
master  in  the  days  of  his  early  manhood  as  it  was  possible 
even  for  his  pupils  to  do  under  that  industrious  and  skill 
ful  performance  of  his  preceptorial  functions,  for  which 
he  has  been  given  credit.  The  knowledge  which  he  had 
himself  acquired  at  college  became  more  thoroughly 
engrafted  upon  his  memory,  and  must  have  assumed  a 
more  digested  and  orderly  character,  adapting  it  more  con 
veniently  to  the  practical  uses  of  life.  I  should  not  pro 
nounce,  though,  that  he  ever  became  a  thoroughly  ripe 
scholar,  being  in  this  respect,  as  I  venture  to  suggest, 
greatly  inferior  to  liufus  K.  Choate,  Edward  Everett, 
Wendell  Phillips,  Charles  Sumner,  Caleb  Cushing,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  some  others  whom  it  would  be  easy 
to  name.  He  was  the  maker  of  many  speeches,  but  he  had 
written  far  more  than  he  had  spoken  ;  a  truth  which  no 
one  will  be  disposed  to  question  after  having  learned  that 
he  wrote  much  which  was  never  orally  enunciated,  and 
that  he  never  spoke  what  he  had  not  already  first  written. 
His  style  of  composition  had  many  excellencies,  and  but 
few  positive  faults.  He  wrote  in  a  clear,  polished,  and 
vigorous  style,  seldom  using  more  words  than  were  neces 
sary  to  express  his  meaning,  and  rarely  leaving  his  mean 
ing  so  involved  in  ill-selected  words  as  not  to  be  easy  of 
apprehension,  even  to  an  ordinary  reader.  He  possessed 
in  a  high  degree  as  a  writer  both  the  suaviter  in  modo  and 
the  fortiter  in  re — never,  or  very  rarely,  running  into  the 
error  confessed  by  Horace,  in  his  "Ars  Poetica,"  when  he 
says:  '''•Breve  esse  laboro  ;  fio  obscurus  ;"  while  it  must  be 
admitted  that  he  never  rose  to  the  dignity  and  elegance  of 
a  Cicero  or  a  Macaulay,  and  never  exhibited  the  grandeur 
or  profoundly  of  a  Burke  or  a  Webster.  He  was  a  good 
deal  given  to  facetiousness,  but  I  never  heard  him  utter  a 
decidedly  brilliant  witticism  in  my  life.  His  memory  was 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  125 

most  extraordinary,  and  he  kept  it  in  good  condition  by 
constant  exercise.  His  capacity  for  reasoning  upon  any 
given  question  was  far  superior  to  his  judgment  of  either 
men  or  things.  He  did  not  seem  to  me  to  be  so  desirous 
of  ascertaining  the  exact  truth  about  any  matter  of  dis 
pute  which  he  professed  to  be  seeking  to  elucidate,  as  to 
make  the  most  plausible  showing  possible  for  the  side  of 
the  question  which  he  had  himself  espoused.  His  tem 
perament  was  cold  and  unexcitable ;  he  had  really  no 
intense  emotions,  and  he  therefore  never  fell  into  the  lan 
guage  of  passion.  His  imagination  was  dull  and  sluggish, 
though  he  had  labored  hard  to  lash  it  into  activity.  He 
had  indefatigably  sought  to  fill  his  memory  with  the 
beauties  of  speech  which  had  originated  in  other  minds? 
but  without  being  able  completely  to  assimilate  what  he 
had  thus  borrowed  with  his  own  native  stores ;  so  that 
when  he  was  ambitious  of  adorning  his  elocution  with 
figurative  illustrations  he  wore  the  air  of  a  frigid  and 
passionless  reciter  of  the  fine  utterances  of  others  far  more 
than  he  did  that  of  a  sublime  and  electrical  enunciator  of 
grand  ideas  and  startling  sentiments  originating  in  a 
moment  of  peculiar  inspiration  in  the  mind  of  the  orator 
himself.  The  labor  of  a  lifetime  might  have  qualified  him, 
perhaps,  almost  to  have  written  such  a  work  as  that 
bequeathed  to  the  world  by  Quintillian  ;  no  amount  of 
industry,  no  concurrence  of  fortunate  circumstances,  could 
ever  have  enabled  him  to  attain  a  height  of  oratorical 
excellence  which  might  suggest  to  the  minds  of  those  who 
listened  to  him  the  propriety  of  comparing  him  to  a 
Demosthenes,  a  Cicero,  a  Chatham,  or  a  Clay.  His  manner 
as  a  speaker  was  far  below  his  matter  in  point  of  dignity 
and  impressiveness.  His  person  was  diminutive;  his  face 
was  almost  beardless  ;  he  had  a  cold  gray  eye,  which  never 
glistened  with  excitement,  and  never  mellowed  with  sym 
pathetic  emotion  ;  his  movements,  when  on  his  legs,  were 


126  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

awkward  and  shambling  ;  his  voice  was  husky  and  indis 
tinct  ;  he  read  in  a  cold  and  overstrained  manner  what 
he  had  carefully  prepared  for  the  occasion  ;  or,  if  he 
uttered  several  paragraphs  from  memory,  without  referring 
to  the  elaborate  notes  which  he  had  prepared,  he  had  ever 
and  anon  to  throw  his  eyes  upon  the  paper  before  him  so 
as  to  he  enabled  to  go  through  with  what  he  called  his 
speech.  Such  a  discourse  as  this,  delivered  in  the  manner 
I  have  described,  might  pass  very  well  for  a  lecture,  but 
it  is  as  far  from  being  such  oratory  as  the  rhetoricians  of 
old  have  described  as  anything  which  could  be  possibly 
imagined. 

I  have  heard  Mr.  Seward,  more  than  once,  when  vio 
lently  assailed  in  the  Senate,  declare  that  it  had  long  been 
with  him  a  rule  of  life  never  to  grow  angry  under  coarse 
and  unjust  decrial,  and  never  to  retaliate  words  of  per 
sonal  insult.  I  can  well  believe  this  statement  to  be  true. 
Whether  he  was  always  able  to  avoid  the  feeling  of  resent 
ment  under  supposed  injury  may  be  a  question,  and  I  con 
fess  that  I  am  among  those  who  suppose  him  to  have  been, 
in  a  quiet  way,  an  exceedingly  good  hater. 

He  had  a  great  and  peculiar  turn  for  what  is  called 
diplomacy.  The  order  of  his  mind  admirably  fitted  him 
for  the  cool  and  subtle  discussion  pf  questions  growing 
out  of  international  intercourse;  and  I  doubt  not  that  his 
correspondence  with  American  Ministers  abroad  whilst 
Secretary  of  State  will  pass  down  to  posterity  with  distin 
guished  honor,  and  be  read  by  generations  yet  to  come 
with  instruction,  with  entertainment,  and  even  with  ever- 
increasing  admiration. 

I  do  not  at  all  agree  with  those  of  the  present  day  who 
attribute  the  whole  administrative  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  the  personage  of  whom  I  am  now  speaking.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  far  better  fitted  for  the  general  functions  of 

o 

the  high  ofiice  which  he  filled  with  so  much  credit  to  him- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  127 

self,  and  with  such  lasting  honor  to  the  Republic,  than 
William  II.  Seward  would  have  shown  himself  to  be  had 
he  ever  attained  the  Presidency.  I  should  rather  be 
inclined  to  attribute  the  zigzag  and  blundering  adminis 
tration  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  the  unhappy  inspiration  of 
his  renowned  Secretary  of  State.  It  was  the  ambitious 
and  contriving  mind  of  the  great  political  manager  of  New 
York  which  originated  the  "  my  policy  "  series  of  mea 
sures  adopted  by  the  maladroit  Johnson  in  order  to  recon 
struct  the  States  just  coming  out  of  the  rebellion  before 
Congress  could  come  together  for  the  purpose  of  settling 
the  modus  operandi  of  a  proceeding  which  unquestionably 
belonged  to  the  legislative  department  of  the  Government. 
In  fact,  Mr.  Seward,  in  a  well-known  and  carefully  pre 
pared  speech  of  his,  delivered  at  his  own  home  in  New 
York,  during  the  summer  or  autumn  of  1865,  asserted  in 
the  most  emphatic  manner  that  the  reconstruction  policy 
of  Johnson,  which  many  persons  then  thought  might 
prove  a  great  success,  had  originated  with  the  antecedent 
Administration.  This  was  evidently  intended  to  secure 
to  himself  the  credit  of  having  controlled  both  Adminis- 

ra 

trations.  It  is  certain  that  Mr.  Seward  warmly  approved 
of  President  Johnson's  whole  course,  up  to  the  day  of  his 
leaving  Washington  for  the  mountains  of  East  Tennessee. 
He  attended  him  in  that  romantic  and  most  memorable 
ramble  made  by  the  enterprising  Johnson,  when  he  was 
"  swinging  "  so  ominously  "  round  the  circle."  He  aided 
him  in  the  huge  attempt  to  get  up  a  third  party  at  Phila 
delphia,  which  was  expected  to  secure  the  election  of 
Andrew  Johnson  for  a  second  Presidential  term.  He 
co-operated  heartily  with  Andrew  Johnson  in  that  most 
unwise  and  ungracious  act  of  setting  aside  the  noble  com 
pact  of  surrender  agreed  upon  between  General  Sherman 
and  General  Joe  Johnston,  which  the  lamented  Lincoln 
would  certainly  have  ratified  most  cordially  had  he  con- 


128  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

tinned  to  live,  and  the  execution  of  which  would,  seven 
years  ago,  have  restored  all  the  States  and  people  of  this 
Republic  to  their  condition  of  primeval  tranquillity  and 
brotherhood.  Mr.  Seward,  it  should  never  be  forgotten? 
sent  by  telegram  to  Washington  city  the  evidence  of  his 
warm  approval  of  the  silliest  and  most  malignant  speech 
which  even  Andrew  Johnson  ever  made  ;  I  allude  to  that 
one  delivered  by  him  on  the  night  of  the  22d  of  February, 
1866  ;  after  the  pouring  out  which,  he  became,  in  the  ex. 
alted  station  which  he  occupied,  utterly  powerless  for  any 
good  whatever,  and  even  the  prolific'source  of  woes  innu 
merable.  Oh, no!  let  William  II.  Seward  have  all  the  honors 
awarded  to  him  which  he  justly  deserves  to  have  ;  but  let 
us  not  "  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul ;"  let  us  not  deprive  the 
martyred  Lincoln  of  the  glories  which  so  splendidly  encir 
cle  his  name,  and  which,  next  to  Washington  himself,  in 
my  judgment,  over  all  other  Presidents  which  the  country 
has  yet  known,  he  deserves  to  have  accorded  to  him  by 
the  children  and  the  children's  children  of  those  for  whom 
he  toiled,  thought,  and  died. 

The  best  specimen  of  Mr.  Seward's  prolific  pen  is  per 
haps  "The  Life  of  John  Quincy  Adams."  It  is  indeed  a 
most  readable  and  instructive  volume,  does  full  justice  to 
the  character  and  public  services  of  the  eminent  states 
man  whom  he  has  undertaken  to  depicture,  and,  I  am 
glad  to  know,  is  most  generously  appreciated  by  his  ac 
complished  son,  whose  respect  and  admiration  for  Mr. 
Sewrard  may  be  supposed,  on  a  recent  occasion,  to  have 
assumed  a  somewhat  extravagant  form,  without  gravely 
calling  in  question  either  the  feelings  of  his  heart  or  the 
general  soundness  of  his  judgment. 

In  the  last  days  of  the  session  of  Congress,  terminating 
on  the  night  of  the  3d  of  March,  1849,  Mr.  Douglas,  of 
Illinois,  raised  an  important  test  question  in  connection 
with  the  bill,  then  on  its  passage,  for  the  organization  of 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  129 

the  new  Territory  of  Oregon,  by  the  introduction  of  an 
amendment  providing  for  the  extension  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  line  of  36°  30'  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  Mr. 
Seward,  being  very  much  opposed  to  such  a  settlement  of 
the  pending  question  of  slavery  as  this  amendment  con 
templated,  before  even  he  had  yet  taken  his  seat  in  the 
national  Senate,  occupied  himself  very  industriously  in 
securing  the  defeat  of  this  measure,  an  account  of  which 

O  7 

exploit  he  immediately  thereafter  published,  over  his  own 
signature,  in  the  National  Intelligencer.  In  illustration  of 
his  conduct  on  this  occasion,  it  is  due  to  Mr.  Seward  to 
publish  the  following  extract  of  a  speech  of  his  upon  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850.  He  said:  "It  is  insisted 
that  the  admission  of  California  shall  be  attended  by  a 
compromise  of  questions  growing  out  of  slavery.  I  am 
opposed  to  any  such  compromise,  in  any  and  in  all  the 
forms  in  which  it  has  been  proposed,  because,  while  ad 
mitting  the  purity  and  the  patriotism  of  all  from  whom 
it  is  my  misfortune  to  differ,  I  think  all  legislative  com 
promises  which  are  not  absolutely  necessary  radically 
wrong  and  essentially  vicious." 

Mr.  Seward  delivered  a  very  remarkable  speech  in 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  in  1848,  in  which  he  said:  "There  are 
two  antagonist cal  elements  of  society  in  America,  free 
dom  and  slavery.  Freedom  is  in  harmony  with  our  sys 
tem  of  government  and  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  is 
therefore  passive  and  quiescent.  Slavery  is  in  conflict 
with  that  system,  with  justice,  and  with  humanity,  and 
is  therefore  organized,  defensive,  and  active,  and  perpetu 
ally  aggressive." 

These  are  words  of  very  striking  import,  and,  joined 
with  Mr.  Yancey's  noted  declaration  in  1860,  that  the 
time  had  come  to  make  slavery  aggressive,  may  prove 
very  worthy  of  calm  consideration  among  the  generations 
hereafter  to  inherit  the  free  soil  of  America.  It  is  quite 
9a 


130  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

a  remarkable  fact  that  a  little  more  than  ten  years  after 
the  Cleveland  speech  Mr.  Seward  himself  became  a  zeal 
ous  advocate  of  compromise. 

There  was  one  portion  of  this  same  Cleveland  speech 
which  was  of  a  highly  inflammatory  tendency,  and  plainly 
menaced  civil  war ;  on  reading  which  one  can  hardly  help 
being  struck  with  the  remarkable  contrast  apparent  be 
tween  the  spirit  therein  displayed  by  Mr.  Seward  and 
that  breathed  by  Mr.  Burke  when  saying:  "We  ought 
to  act  in  political  affairs  with  all  the  moderation  which 
does  not  absolutely  enervate  that  vigor  and  repress  that 
fervency  of  spirit  without  which  the  best  wishes  for  the 
public  good  must  evaporate  in  empty  speculation." 

During  my  stay  in  Washington  pending  the  discus 
sions  on  the  Lecompton  bill  heretofore  referred  to — that 
is  to  say,  in  the  winter  of  1858 — I  had  the  unexpected 
honor  of.  being  invited  to  a  well-known  restaurant  in 
that  city.  Of  course- 1  did  not  refuse  the  kindly  sum 
mons,  and  proceeded  at  the  time  appointed  to  the  place 
specified.  Before  I  had  reached  the  banqueting  hall  some 
special  information  was  communicated  to  me  which  I 
will  now  proceed  to  narrate.  General  Kelson,  the  per 
sonage  who  figured  so  prominently  in  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  during  the  late  war,  and  who  was  so  unfortu 
nately  killed  in  private  combat  at  Louisville  by  that 
General  Davis  who  has  recently  been  winning  so  much 
renown  on  the  Pacific  slope,  when  walking  to  the  Capi 
tol,  on  the  morning  immediately  preceding  the  dinner 
s<.vne  presently  to  be  described,  had  accidentally  en 
countered  a  well-dressed  Englishman,  of  rather  an  eccen 
tric  appearance  and  manners,  who  inquired  in  a  decided 
ly  cockneyish  style,  as  was  reported  to  me,  the  way  to  the 
room  in  which  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
was  holding  its  sittings.  After  the  desired  information 

o  o 

had  been  supplied,  a  sort  of  miscellaneous   conversation 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  131 

sprang  up  between  General  Nelson  and  his  supposed  Lon 
don  acquaintance.  He  resolved  to  go  with  him  to  the 
Supreme  Court-room,  that  he  might  there  see  more  of  him. 
While  sitting  there,  it  struck  him  that  a  very  funny  ban 
queting  scene  might  be  gotten  up,  if  he  should  draw  up  a 
card  of.  invitation  to  the  aforesaid  son  of  "The  Fast-An 
chored  Isle,"  requesting  him  in  the  name  of  several  dis 
tinguished  members  of  Congress — easy  to  be  obtained — 
to  accept,  that  very  evening,  a  social  repast,  to  be  given 
in  honor  of  her  Majesty,  Queen  Victoria,  and  the  British 
people.  This  invitation  had  been  very  courteously  ac 
cepted,  and  when  I  reached  the  designated  place  of  social 
reunion^  I  found  an  exceedingly  gay  and  splendid  com 
pany  assembled.  The  English  guest  was  of  course  occu 
pying  the  seat  of  honor,  and  at  different  parts  of  the  table 
were  to  be  seen  Vice  President  Breckinridge,  William  H. 
Seward,  Colonel  Orr,  the  late  Minister  to  Russia,  who 
was  then  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives ;  Lewis 
D.  Campbell,  of  Ohio;  the  celebrated  Humphrey  Marshall, 
of  Kentucky ;  Albert  Pike,  the  erudite  lawyer,  the  bril 
liant  colloquiaiist,  and  of  late,  as  I  am  glad  to  learn,  the 
author  of  a  most  profound  and  entertaining  work  on 
Comparative  Philology ;  General  Nelson  himself,  and 
this  reminiscent.  Dinner  had  already  commenced  when 
I  reached  the  arena  of  action,  and  the  first  glass  of  wine 
was  about  to  be  drunk.  A  sentiment  preceded  it,  which, 
being  in  honor  of  her  gracious  Majesty,  the  Queen  of  the 
British  realm,  called  her  loyal  subject  to  his  feet ;  when, 
without  the  least  embarrassment,  in  as  easy,  dignified, 
and  graceful  a  style  as  either  Lord  Chesterfield  or  Lord 
Palmerston  could  have  exhibited,  he  poured  forth  an  im 
promptu  response  which  was  in  all  respects  a  perfect 
masterpiece  of  its  kind.  The  whole  company  was  mani 
festly  thrown  aback  by  a  display  so  unlocked  for.  After 
a  while  the  wine  began  to  circulate  very  freely  ;  glass  after 


132  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

glass  was  drunk  with  hearty  good  will,  while  choice  anec 
dote,  brilliant  repartee,  and  songs,  both  merry  and  pa 
thetic,  served  to  enliven  the  occasion.  Just  as  the  com 
pany  was  rising  from  the  table,  Mr.  Seward,  who  had  al 
ready  contributed  at  least  his  full  quota  to  our  entertain 
ment,  rose,  and  with  more  than  usual  gravity,  asked  to 
be  permitted  to  otter  a  sentiment,  to  which  all  the  com 
pany  assenting,  he  said :  "Gentlemen,  it  has  been  my  for 
tune  to  occupy  a  seat  in  Congress,  as  you  all  very  well 
know,  for  many  years,  during  which  period  I  have  made 
one  of  many  genial  meetings  like  the  present.  I  lament 
to  say,  gentlemen,  that  it  has  uniformly  happened  here 
tofore  on  such  occasions  that  the  concord  and  agreeable 
hilarity  of  the  dinner  scene  have  been  more  or  less  marred 
by  the  unhappy  introduction  of  irritating  sectional  topics. 
To-day  nothing  of  the  sort  has  occurred,  a  circumstance 
to  me  exceedingly  gratifying.  I  now  give  you,  gentle 
men,  the  following  sentiment :  'May  many  such  pleasant 
banquets  as  this  hereafter  occur  among  us,  and  may  none 
of  them  be  interrupted  or  rendered  less  agreeable  by  the 
introduction  of  sectional  topics.' ' 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  133 

REMINISCENCE  No.  XIV. 

LINCOLN — BUCHANAN — DOUGLAS — JOHN   SLIDELL. 

It  is  with  feelings  of  peculiar  solemnity  that  I  proceed 
to  state  some  recollections  connected  with  the  coming-  of 

o 

Ah  rah  am  Lincoln  into  the  office  of  President  of  the  Uni 
ted  States.  This  event  stands  inseparably  connected  with 
others  of  the  greatest  and  most  painful  import.  I  hope, 
in  mentioning  my  own  remembrances  of  the  various  mat 
ters  alluded  to  I  may  do  injustice  to  neither  the  living 
nor  the  dead  ;  but  a  frank  and  unvarnished  exposition  has 
become  necessary  of  certain  occurrences  which  have  too 
long  been  the  subject  of  the  grossest  misrepresentation, 
and,  therefore,  the  source  of  much  error  and  of  much 
suffering.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  by  birth  a  Southern 
man,  having  been  born  on  the  soil  of  Kentucky.  He  was 
in  the  beginning  of  his  career  poor  and  obscure,  and  had 
to  work  for  his  livelihood.  He  was  an  attorney  by  pro 
fession,  and  had  so  conducted  himself  amid  the  multiplied 
temptations  which  beset  the  vocation  in  which  he  had 
enlisted  as  to  be  everywhere  recognized  in  a  very  special 
manner  as  an  honest  lawyer.  No  suspicion  was  ever 
breathed  as  to  his  intregity  or  truth.  He  is  known  to 
have  been  personally  brave,  and  it  was  universally  under 
stood  of  him  that  while  never  insulting  any  one,  he  never 
quietly  submitted  to  indignity  or  outrage.  In  all  respects 
he  was  a  man  of  sound  and  unimpeachable  morality,  and 
he  had  ever  proved  himself  an  affectionate  and  attentive 
husband,  a  tender  and  providing  parent,  and  a  firm  and 
steadfast  friend  to  all  for  whom  he  had  once  professed 
amity.  I  doubt  if  there  ever  was  a  more  upright  and 
reliable  person  on  the  soil  of  this  continent  than  the 
individual  of  whom  I  am  now  writing.  He  was  not  an 


14  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

abolitionist,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  word,  at  any 
period  of  his  life,  though  he  had  always  disapproved  of 
slavery  in  all  its  forms,  and  would  at  any  time  have 
rejoiced  to  see  it  brought  to  an  end  in  all  the  States  of  the 
Union,  in  some  peaceful  and  constitutional  manner.  He 
was  a  firm  and  inflexible  supporter  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  had  no  inclination  to  disturb  any 
of  its  guarantees  so  long  as  that  instrument  should  remain 
unaltered.  He  was,  doubtless,  sagacious  enough  to  under 
stand  that  African  slavery,  existing  as  it  did  in  the  United 
States  in  opposition  to  the  almost  universal  public  senti 
ment  of  the  civilized  world,  could  only  be  expected  to  be 
maintained  under  the  protection  of  the  guarantees  just 
referred  to  ;  and  he  must  have  always  understood  that 
whenever  slavery  should  become  decidedly  aggressive  in  its 
character,  and  should  attempt  to  extend  itself  by  unconsti 
tutional  means,  this  would  be  almost  certain  to  lead  to  its 
speedy  overthrow.  He  did  not  believe  that  slavery  could 
be  legitimately  carried  to  the  territorial  domain  of  the 
Government  outside  the  States  wherein  it  was  already 
established,  and  he  fully  concurred  with  Mr.  Clay,  Mr. 
Webster,  and  others  that  Congress,  having  exclusive  legis 
lative  jurisdiction  within  the  District  of  Columbia,  it  was 
competent  for  that  body  to  discontinue  it  there  whenever 
it  should  be  judged  expedient  to  do  so.  While  the  fugi 
tive  slave  law  should  continue  to  exist  he  was  in  favor  of 
enforcing  its  provisions  even  within  the  limits  of  the  free 
States  themselves,  and  he  is  not  known  to  have  made  any 
strenuous  effort  to  procure  its  repeal.  In  truth,  Mr.  Lin 
coln  was  little  more  than  a  Whig  of  the  Clay  and  Webster 
stamp,  and  warmly  supported  Mr.  Clay  in  all  his  attempts 
to  reach  the  Presidential  office.  When  he  ran  against 
Mr.  Douglas  for  the  United  States  Senate,  only  a  short 
time  before  he  became  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  it 
is  well  known  that  Mr.  Buchanan,  the  leader  and  rcpre- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  135 

sentative  of  the  Democracy  of  that  period,  openly  sympa 
thized  with  him  in  that  contest,  and  urged  various  gen 
tlemen  of  some  ability  as  speakers  to  visit  the  State  of 
Illinois  and  aid  in  securing  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  in  preference  to  Mr.  Doug 
las.  I  was  myself  positively  assured  by  Colonel  Carpenter, 
a  gentleman  then  very  favorably  known  as  a  stump- 
speaker  in  the  West,  that  he  had  canvassed  Illinois  against 
Mr.  Douglas  at  the  earnest  request  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  and 
upon  a  positive  promise  of  the  Commissionership  to  China 
if  he  would  perform  this  duty — a  post,  however,  which 
was  not,  in  the  sequel,  bestowed  upon  him,  and  of  the 
failure  to  confer  which  Mr.  Carpenter  most  vehemently 
complained.  John  Slidell,  well  known  in  Louisiana  for 
many  years  as  a  corrupt  tamperer  with  popular  elections 
in  the  interests  of  the  Democracy,  openly  confessed  to  me, 
in  the  city  of  Memphis,  on  his  return  from  Illinois,  where 
he  had  been  exerting  himself  for  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Dong- 
las'  Senatorial  aspirations,  in  presence  of  from  fifty  to  one 
hundred  respectable  citizens,  that  he  had  used  money 
freely  in  Illinois  for  the  overthrow  of  Douglas,  avowing 
at  the  same  time  his  anxiety  to  see  Lincoln  elected  over 
him.  So  that  it  is  quite  evident  that  at  this  time  even 
Mr.  Lincoln's  avowed  political  foes  entertained  great  per 
sonal  respect  for  him,  and  regarded  his  presence  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  as  altogether  desirable.  It  is 

O 

well  known,  both  to  myself  and  others  in  Mr.  Douglas' 
confidence,  that  he  always  entertained  a  very  high  opinion 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  abilities  and  character ;  and,  I  am  credi 
bly  informed  by  persons  of  the  highest  standing,  that  an 
hour  or  two  after  the  delivery  of  President  Lincoln's 
inaugural  address  Mr.  Douglas  approached  him  and 
declared  his  warm  approval  of  all  that  he  had  uttered  on 
that  occasion. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  intriguing  politicians 


136  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

of  the  secession  stamp  had  labored  with  great  assiduity  in 
the  Charleston  Convention  to  defeat  Mr.  Douglas,  because 
of  his  firm  adherence  to  the  ancient  Democratic  platform; 
that  they  had  urged  the  adoption  of  a  resolution,  as  part 
of  that  platform,  providing  for  the  positive  intervention  of 
Congress  in  the  vacant  Territories  of  the  Union  in  favor 
of  slavery  ;  that  this  resolution  was  afterward  adopted  in 
Baltimore;  that  in  connection  with  these  proceedings  the 
Presidential  ticket,  upon  which  were  inscribed  the  names 
of  Breckinridge  and  Lane,  was  put  in  the  field;  that  it 
was  openly  avowed  by  Mr.  Yancey  and  others  of  the 
secession  stamp  at  this  very  time  that  they  had  little  ex 
pectation  of  electing  the  ticket  they  had  formed,  but 
hoped  to  defeat  Douglas  by  the  means  they  were  using 
for  that  purpose ;  and  that  Mr.  Yancey,  the  great  seces 
sion  leader  of  that  period,  had  more  than  once  declared, 
with  his  own  characteristic  frankness,  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln 
should  be  elected  to  the  Presidency,  even  by  a  mere  plu 
rality  of  votes,  he  and  his  political  confreres  would  imme 
diately,  upon  that  pretext,  attempt  to  withdraw  the 
Southern  States  from  the  Union.  Consider,  too,  that  Mr. 
Buchanan  and  his  Cabinet  had  been  all  along  openly 
abetting  these  movements ;  that  several  of  the  members 
of  his  Cabinet  had  already  become  thoroughly  compro 
mised  in  various  ways  in  the  secession  scheme ;  that 
menaces  of  armed  resistance  to  the  Government  had  been 
made  in  various  forms,  and  that  all  were  denounced  in 
advance  as  dishonored  men  who  would  accept  office  of 
any  grade  or  character  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Now,  let  us  examine  for  a  moment  the  conduct  of  Mr. 
Lincoln — the  extreme  moderation  and  forbearance  shown 
by  him — bearing  in  mind  all  the  while  that  the  declara 
tions  which  lie  solemnly  made  at  this  time  were,  for  rea 
sons  already  given,  entitled  to  the  fullest  confidence.  In 
his  speech  at  Indianapolis,  the  first  of  many  which  he 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  137 

delivered  on  the  way  to  Washington  city,  he  used  this 
language : 

"What,  then,  is  coercion?  What,  then,  is  invasion?  Would  the 
marching  of  an  army  into  South  Carolina  without  the  consent  of  her 
people,  and  with  hostile  intent  toward  them,  be  invasion?  [  certainly 
think  it  would  be  invasion,  and  coercion  also,  if  South  Carolina  were 
forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United  Slates  should  merely  hold  and 
retake  her  own  forts  and  other  property,  and  collect  the  duties  on  for 
eign  importations,  or  even  withhold  the  mails  from  places  where  they 
were  habitually  violated,  would  any  one  or  all  these  things  be  invasion 
or  coercion?" 

Again  he  said,  at  Pittsburg : 

t;  I  repeat  now,  there  is  no  crisis  except  such  a  one  as  may  be  gotten 
up  at  any  time  by  designing  politicians.  My  advice  to  them,  under  the 
circumstances,  is,  to  '  keep  cool.'  If  the  great  American  people  keep 
their  temper  on  both  sides  of  the  line  the  trouble  will  come  to  an  end, 
and  the  question  which  now  distracts  the  country  be  settled,  just  as 
surely  as  all  other  difficulties  of  a  like  character  which  have  originated 
in  this  Government  have  been  adjusted.  Let  the  people  on  both  sides 
keep  their  self-possession,  and  just  as  other  clouds  have  cleared  away 
in  due  time  so  will  this  great  nation  continue  to  prosper  as  heretofore." 

How  wise  and  considerate  are  all  these  suggestions,  and 
how  impressively  applicable  to  certain  over-excited  dis 
tricts  of  our  country  at  the  present  time  !  Would  that 
the  fierce  zealots  who  are  raging  now  so  wildly  in  one  or 
two  vicinages  in  the  far  Southwest  would  act  the  part 
then  so  impressively  recommended  !  Oh  !  how  I  should 
rejoice  to  see  our  countrymen  everywhere  exercising  that 
coolness  and  self-possession,  never  forgetting  for  a  moment 
that  this  is  a  land  of  government  and  law,  and  that  the 
sacred  and  unavoidable  duty  of  those  invested  with 
authority  is  to  maintain  the  principles  of  law  and  order 
at  all  hazards  ;  for  without  this  we  are  indeed  all  com 
pletely  wrecked. 

In  Philadelphia,  at  Independence  Hall,  Mr.  Lincoln 
concluded  a  modest  and  dignified  harangue  thus  nobly : 

41  ]N"ow,  in  my  view  of  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  there  need  be  no 


138  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

bloodshed  or  war.  There  is  no  necessity  for  it.  I  am  not  in  favor  of 
such  a  course  ;  and  I  may  say,  and  in  advance,  that  there  will  be  no 
bloodshed,  unless  it  be  forced  upon  the  Government,  and  then  it  will 
be  in  self-defense." 

What  could  Washington  himself  have  said  more  patri 
otic  and  pacific  had  he  been  in  such  a  situation  as  that  at 
this  moment  occupied  by  Mr.  Lincoln? 

But  in  his  inaugural  address  he  gave  still  fuller  assur 
ances  to  the  whole  country  as  to  the  course  intended  to  be 
pursued  by  him.  In  the  opening  portion  thereof  he 
said  : 

"  Apprehension  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  that,  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican  A;ltnhiistr.itijn,  their  pro 
perty  and  their  peace  and  personal  security  will  be  endangered.  There 
has  never  been  any  reasonable  ciuse  for  suc'.i  apprehension.  Indeed* 
the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while  existed,  and 
been  open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all  the  published 
speeches  of  him  who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of 
those  speeches  when  I  declare  that  4 1  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indi 
rectly,  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe 
I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  intention  to  do  so. 
Those  who  nominated  me  and  elected  me  did  so  with  this  and  many 
similar  declarations,  and  I  had  never  recanted  them.  Moreover,  thcjr 
placed  in  the  platform,  for  my  acceptance,  and  as  a  law  to  themselves 
and  to  nn\  the  emphatic  resolution  which  I  now  read  : 

"  '  Resolved,  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights  of  the 
States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each  to  order  and  control  its  own  do 
mestic  institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusive!}',  is  essen. 
tial  to  that  balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of 
our  political  fabric  depend  ;  and  we  denounce  the  lawless  invasion  by 
armed  force  of  the  soil  of  any  State  or  Territory,  no  matter  under  what 
pretext,  as  the  greatest  of  crimes.' ' 

Then,  after  adding,  that  "  all  the  protection  which, 
consistently  with  the  Constitution  and  laws,"  could  "  be 
given,  would  be  cheerfully  given  to  all  the  States,  when 
lawfully  demanded,  for  whatever  cause,  as  cheerfully  to 
one  section  as  to  another,"  he  referred  to  the  clause  in  the 
Federal  Constitution  relating  to  the  returning  of  "  fugi 
tives  from  service,"  and  said : 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  139 

"  It  is  scarcely  questioned  that  this  provision  was  intended  by  those 
who  made  it  for  the  reclaiming  of  what  we  call  fugitive  slaves,  and  the 
intention  of  the  lawgiver  is  the  law.  All  members  of  Congress  swear  their 
support  to  the  whole  Constitution,  to  this  as  well  as  any  other.  To 
the  proposition,  then,  that  slaves  '  shall  be  delivered  up  '  their  oaths  are 
unanimous.  No\v,  if  they  would  make  the  effort  in  good  temper,  could 
they  not,  with  nearly  equal  unanimity,  frame  and  pass  a  law  by 
means  of  which  they  could  keep  good  that  unanimous  oath?" 

lie  presently  proceeds  to  say  : 

"  I  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental  reservation,  and  with 
no  purpose  to  construe  the  Constitution  or  laws  by  any  hypercritical 
rules  ;  and  while  I  do  not  choose  now  to  specify  particular  acts  of  Con 
gress  as  proper  to  be  enforced,  I  do  suggest  that  it  will  be  much  safer 
for  all,  both  in  official  and  private  stations,  to  conform  to  and  abide  by 
all  those  acts  which  stand  un repealed,  than  to  violate  any  of  them, 
trusting  to  find  impunity  in  having  them  held  unconstitutional." 

How  could  any  reasonable  Southern  man  have  demanded 
any  stronger  assurances  than  these  ?  They  are  positively 
stronger  and  more  comprehensive  than  any  previous  Presi 
dent  had  found  it  necessary  to  give,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's 
character,  was,  after  all,  really  the  best  guarantee  that  they 
could  possibly  have  possessed. 

Referring  to  his  duty  to  maintain  the  Government  he 
says : 

"  I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace,  but  only  as  a  declared 
purpose  of  the  Union  that  it  will  constitutionally  defend  and  inaintaiu 
itself.  In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence,  and  there 
shall  be  none  unless  it  is  torced  upon  the  national  authority." 

lie  closes  his  address  in  these  noble  words  : 

"My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this 
whole  subject  ;  nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time. 

•4  If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in  hot  haste  to  a  step 
which  you  would  Lever  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated 
by  taking  time  ;  but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it. 

'•  Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied  still  have  the  old  Constitution 
unimpaired,  and  on  the  sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing 
under  it,  while  the  new  Administration  will  have  no  immediate  power, 
if  it  would,  to  change  either. 

ktlf  it  were  admitted  that  you,  who  are  dissatisfied,  hold  the  right  side 


140  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

in  the  dispute,  there  is  still  no  single  reason  for  precipitate  action.  In 
telligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on  Him  who 
has  never  yet  forsaken  the  favored  land  are  still  competent  to  adjust 
in  the  best  way  all  our  difficulties. 

u  In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine, 
is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  Government  will  not  assail 
you. 

"You  can  have  no  conflict  without  making  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  can  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  Government, 
while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  'preserve,  protect,  and  de 
fend'  it. 

;t  I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must 
not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break 
the  bonds  of  affection. 

"  The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field 
and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this 
broad  land  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union  when  again  touched, 
as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

It  would  indeed  seem  that  this  memorable  address 
should  have  had  a  most  soothing  and  reassuring  influence 
upon  the  minds  and  hearts  even  of  those  who  stood 
already  committed  to  extreme  measures,  and  who  had 
made  secret  preparations  for  the  daring  and  mad  experi 
ment  which  was  soon  to  he  essayed.  Mr.  Calhoun  had 
demanded  a  new  constitutional  guarantee  in  behalf  of 
slavery  before  California  was  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a 
sine  qua  non  to  the  continuance  of  the  Union,  and  his  hot 
headed  disciples  of  1860  made  the  same  demand,  and  upon 
its  not  being  yielded,  they  immediately  commenced  war 
by  ordering  that  the  fort  at  Charleston  should  be  fired 
upon.  The  day  will  surely  come  when  this  will  be  looked 
upon  universally  as  the  most  unjustifiable  and  unwise  pro 
ceeding  which  has  ever  marked  the  history  of  a  civilized 
and  Christian  people.  This  I  have  for  one  always  thought 
and  shall  never  cease  to  think,  though  circumstances 

o 

beyond  my  control  afterward  drew  me  arid  other  known 
friends  of  the  Union  into  a  most  deplorable  attitude,  for 
the  assumption  of  which,  even  for  a  single  instant  of  time, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  141 

I  shall  never  entirely  forgive  myself,  albeit  a  magnani 
mous  Government  has  already  pardoned  the  offense. 

In  reference  to  the  unfortunate  result  of  the  efforts  in 
Congress  in  the  spring  of  1861  to  obviate  existing  dangers 
I  shall  venture  to  offer  one  or  two  remarks  here. 

Mr.  Crittenden's  well-known  resolutions  of  compromise 
could,  doubtless,  have  been  obtained,  but  for  the  fact  that 
certain  Southern  Senators,  five  in  number,  (evidently  by 
preconcert,)  when  the  motion  to  substitute  the  two  reso 
lutions  of  Mr.  Clarke  in  lieu  of  them  was  voted  on,  refused 
to  vote  at  all ;  when,  had  they  voted,  as  they  ought  to 
have  done,  Mr.  Clarke's  resolutions  would  have  been 
defeated  by  a  vote  of  28  to  29,  and  Mr.  Crittenden's  must 
have  been  afterward  adopted.  When  the  last  test  vote 
upon  Mr.  Clarke's  substitute  w^as  taken  in  the  Senate  just 
before  the  session  terminated,  Crittenden's  resolutions  of 
compromise  were  defeated  by  a  vote  of  20  to  19,  a  number 
of  Southern  Senators  having  meanwhile,  with  equal  want 
of  true  wisdom  and  practical  fidelity  to  the  South,  resigned 
their  seats  in  Congress  and  returned  to  their  own  homes 
to  aid  in  consummating  the  work  of  secession,  then  in  ac 
tive  progress.  It  is  due  to  Mr.  Seward  to  state  that, 
though  before  that  perilous  moment  opposed  to  all  com 
promise,  he  now  introduced  a  proposition  in  the  Senatorial 
committee  of  thirteen  which,  had  it  been  accepted  in 
behalf  of  the  South,  and  incorporated  into  the  Federal 
Constitution,  would  certainly  have  given  permanent 
security  to  the  slaveholding  region,  though  it  would  just 
as  certainly  have  perpetuated  the  evil  of  slavery.  It  was 
in  these  words  :  u  l$o  amendment  shall  be  made  to  the 
Constitution  which  will  authorize  or  give  to  Congress  any 
power  to  abolish  or  interfere  in  any  State  with  the  domes 
tic  institutions  thereof,  including  that  of  persons  held  to 
service  or  labor  by  the  laws  of  said  State."  To  this  pro 
position,  as  is  now  well  known,  Mr.  Davis,  of  Mississippi, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

and  Mr.  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  refused  their  assent  in  com 
mittee,  these  gentlemen  having  other  fish  to  fry  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Montgomery,  Alabama  ! 

I  have  been  compelled  to  give  these  statements  of  fact, 
to  most  persons,  doubtless,  quite  well  known  heretofore, 
in  order  to  open  the  way  for  the  presentation  hereafter  of 
some  curious  reminiscences,  which  might  not  otherwise  be 
so  fully  appreciated. 


CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES.  143 

REMINISCENCE  No.  XV. 

Mil.    DAVIS — MR.  SEDDON — MR.  BENJAMIN. 

Themistocles,  when  on  a  certain  occasion  a  teacher  of 
the  art  of  memory  tendered  his  services  to  him  as  an  in 
structor,  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  should  greatly 
prefer  becoming  possessed  in  some  way  of  the  means  of 
forfirettinar  all  things  of  a  disagreeable  nature,  and  is  said 

O  ft  &  & 

somewhat  proudly  to  have  rejected  the  proffered  aid. 
Cicero  professes  to  admire  much  the  greatness  of  mind 
displayed  by  the  illustrious  Athenian  in  this  instance, 
but  does  not  hesitate  to  say  for  himself:  "Non  sum  qui 
oblivionis  artem  quam  memoriae  mallem."  Without  com 
mitting  myself  absolutely  on  this  delicate  point,  and  re 
cognizing  in  the  fullest  manner  the  correctness  of  Tully's 
definition  of  memory  when  he  says  of  it :  "Memoria  est 
per  quam  animus  repetit  ilia  quefuerunt — thesaurus  rerum 
invcntarum"  yet  must  I  say  that  I  should  very  gladly  for 
get  forever  all  that  was  so  sad  and  humiliating  in  the 
insane  and  ruinous  career  of  what  was  ten  years  ago 
known  as  the  Government  of  the  Confederate  States  of 
America.  And  yet  are  there  one  or  two  facts  in  addition 
to  those  already  very  hastily  alluded  to  which  I  do  not 
feel  at  liberty  to  exclude  altogether  from  the  observation 
of  such  as  may  be  curious  in  reference  to  the  trying  scenes 
through  w7hich  a  deceived  and  misguided  people  had  so 
painfully  to  pass.  I  shall  be  as  concise  as  possible  in 
dealing  with  these  matters,  and  I  shall  state  nothing  the 
proof  of  which  is  not  easy  to  be  adduced. 

When  Mr.  Benjamin  was  compelled  to  forego  reappoint- 
ment  to  the  Secretaryship  of  War  by  the  continual  com 
plaints  made  in  Congress  and  elsewhere  of  his  gross  offi- 


144  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

eial  misconduct,  Mr.  Davis  was  persuaded  to  appoint  to 
the  vacant  place  a  gentleman  of  rare  qualifications  and  of 
extraordinary  moral  worth — Mr.  Randolph,  of  Virginia, 
a  grandson  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  During  this  gentle 
man's  occupancy  of  the  Department  of  War  his  conduct 
was  eminently  exemplary,  his  high  ability  was  constantly 
displayed  in  the  performance  of  his  arduous  official  du 
ties,  his  industry  was  most  untiring,  and  he  gave  the 
most  indisputable  evidence,  every  day  and  hour,  of  his 
remarkahle  virtues  and  of  his  disinterested  devotion  to 
the  cause  which  he  had  espoused.  He  was  a  man, 
though,  of  singular  independence  of  spirit,  and  though 
sufficiently  deferential  toward  those  to  whom  he  was  offi 
cially  responsible,  yet  he  possessed  far  too  elevated  a  feel 
ing  of  self-respect  and  too  much  regard  for  his  own  well- 
established  fame  to  become  the  mere  slave  of  a  vain  and 
arrogant  Chief  Magistrate.  So,  in  a  short  time,  the  pub 
lic  learned  with  regret  that  General  Randolph  had  re 
signed  and  gone  into  private  life,  and  that  Mr.  James  A. 
Seddon,  also  a  native  of  Virginia,  had  shown  himself  so 
indecently  regardless  of  the  honor  of  the  "Ancient  Do 
minion"  as  to  allow  himself  to  be  foisted  into  a  place 
from  which  his  noble  predecessor  had  been  ousted  by 
such  cruel  ill-treatment. 

From  a  man  who  had  been  willingly  inducted  into  of 
fice  in  a  manner  so  discreditable  of  course  not  much  was 
to  be  expected,  either  of  manly  and  efficient  service,  or 
of  official  purity  and  disinterestedness.  The  career  of 
Mr.  Seddon,  as  Secretary  of  War,  will  long  be  remem 
bered  by  all  who  ever  entered  the  War  Department  at 
Richmond  while  he  sat  enthroned  therein.  It  may  be 
safely  asserted  that  he  did  not  possess  a  single  one  of  the 
qualities  needed  for  a  creditable  and  useful  performance 
of  the  duties  now  devolved  on 'him.  lie  was  never  able 
to  learn  even  the  ordinary  routine  of  official  business, 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  145 

and  often  scornfully  declined  attending  to  matters  of  the 
most  urgent  importance.  He  was  as  arrogant  and  in 
sulting  to  those  who  approached  him  in  his  official  sanc 
tum  as  he  was  notoriously  servile  and  fawning  to  his  own 
executive  chief.  He  evinced,  from  his  very  entrance  into 
office,  an  utter  disregard  of  all  constitutional  obligations, 
and  in  the  exercise  of  the  authority  committed  to  him 
he  proved  himself  to  be  the  most  heartless  and  ruffianly 
tyrant  whom  I  have  ever  yet  seen  in  the  possession  of 
official  power.  Though  he  had  always  been  an  ardent 
State-rights  man  in  profession,  it  soon  became  evident 
that  he  had  never  sincerely  cherished  the  smallest  regard 
for  the  principles  embodied  in  the  well-known  State- 
rights  creed,  and  he  habitually  trampled  under  foot,  and 
without  the  least  appearance  of  a  blush  upon  his  livid  and 
atrabilious  visage,  all  the  anciently  recognized  muni 
ments  of  State  sovereignty.  I  shall  not  now  go  into  a 
minute  specification  of  this  man's  offenses.  It  is  perhaps 
sufficient  to  state  that  he  enforced  with  the  most  unfeel 
ing  rigor  all  the  most  stringent  and  oppressive  enact 
ments  of  the  Confederate  Congress  in  connection  with 
forcible  impressment  and  conscription ;  that  in  many 
known  instances  he  went  far  beyond  the  scope  of  these 
enactments,  while  in  others  he  criminally  relaxed  the 
law  in  order  to  accommodate  special  friends  or  the  mem 
bers  of  his  own  family  connection ;  that  he  was  an  earn 
est  advocate  for  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
and  that  when  this  writ  was  suspended  in  a  manner  com 
pletely  to  uproot  everything  like  civic  jurisdiction  in 
every  nook  and  corner  of  the  unhappy  South,  he  eagerly 
took  advantage  of  the  condition  of  things  to  iill  the 
prison-houses  everywhere  with  as  good  citizens  as  any 
the  South  contained,  and  to  compel  individuals  to  do 
military  duty,  in  violation  of  the  most  solemn  govern 
mental  compacts.  This  was  especially  true  in  regard  to 

10R 


14r>  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

the  six  or  seven  thousand  volunteers  from  the  State  of 
Maryland,  who,  after  enlisting,  without  persuasion  from 
any  quarter,  in  the  Confederate  service  for  a  limited  and 
specified  period,  after  the  expiration  of  this  period  were 
rudely  seized  upon  by  the  myrmidons  of  the  War  De 
partment  with  a  view  to  compelling  them  to  re-enlist, 
under  the  penalty,  should  they  refuse  to  do  so,  of  being 
tried  and  punished  as  for  desertion.  It  is  even  true, 
within  my  own,  knowledge,  that  when  that  firm  and  up 
right  judicial  magistrate,  Judge  Haliburton,  undertook 
in  certain  cases  to  grant  writs  of  habeas  corpus  in  behalf 
of  some  of  those  persecuted  Marylanders,  and  manifested 
a  disposition  to  do  them  justice  as  far,  at  least,  as  was  in 
his  power,  the  rampant  tyrant  at  the  War  office  evinced 
an  open  disregard  even  of  the  authority  of  the  Confed 
erate  district  judge ;  and  that  officer  Avas  even  informed, 
in  the  columns  of  the  recognized  Government  organ,  (the 
Sentinel?)  which  doubtless  spoke  by  the  card,  that  the  Sec 
retary  of  War  would  pay  no  earthly  regard  to  the  most 
deliberate  adjudications  of  the  court  in  which  lie  pre 
sided.  And  yet  Mr.  Davis  retained  Mr.  Seddon  in  office, 
amid  continual  indications  of  popular  indignation  and 
disgust,  from  month  to  month,  and  from  year  to  year ; 
nor  would  he  have  removed  him  at  all  but  for  my  formal 
exposition  of  the  fact  on  the  last  day  of  my  appearance 
in  Congress,  (which  fact  stood  verified  by  his  own  official 
records,)  that  he  had  recently  caused  himself  to  be  paid, 
by  the  hands  of  his  own  official  subordinate,  §40  per 
bushel  for  his  whole  crop  of  wheat  for  the  year  18l>4, 
while  he  was,  by  the  instrumentality  of  forcible  impress 
ment,  compelling  the  farmers  of  North  Carolina,  Geor 
gia*,  and  other  States  to  yield  up  their  wheat  to  the  Gov 
ernment  officials  at  the  very  inadequate  price  of  from  $7 
to  $9  per  bushel,  in  Confederate  paper.  My  exposition 
was  made  in  Congress  one  morning,  and  the  next  morn- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  147 

ing  Mr.  Seddon  resigned ;  but  all  the  facts  then  adverted 
to  by  me  had  been  well  known  to  a  special  committee  of 
the  House  for  several  months,  whose  decided  action  on 
the  subject  I  found  it  impossible  to  obtain,  such  was  the 
slavish  submissiveness  of  the  hour,  and  so  terrific  had 
Mr.  Davis  and  his  Pretorian  bands  become. 

As  chairman  of  a  special  committee  of  the  Confederate 
Congress,  organized  at  my  own  instance,  for  inquiring 
into  cases  of  alleged  illegal  imprisonment,  I  obtained 
from  the  superintendent  of  the  prison-house  in  Richmond 
a  grim  and  shocking  catalogue  of  the  persons  then  con 
fined  there,  amounting  to  the  number  of  several  hun 
dred,  all  of  whom  stood  charged  with  only  suspected  in 
fidelity  to  the  Confederate  cause,  and  these  had  been  ar 
rested,  not  on  oath  of  any  kind.  Just  as  I  was  about  to 
take  proper  steps  to  have  these  poor  creatures  discharged, 
Mr.  Davis'  demand  for  a  renewed  habeas  corpus  suspen 
sion  was  yielded  to,  and  the  door  of  hope  forever  closed 
upon  these  victims  of  despotism,  most  of  whom  died  in 
confinement.  This  case  of  suffering  was  really  almost 
equal  to  that  of  the  famous  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta ! 

It  is  a  notorious  and  undeniable  fact  that  Mr.  Seddon, 
as  the  incumbent  of  the  War  Department,  did  actually 
interpose  in  a  manner  most  rude  and  unfeeling  to  pre 
vent  the  Confederate  lines  from  being  passed  by  ladies  of 
the  highest  respectability,  desirous  only  of  carrying  their 
infant  children  to  school  in  Maryland  and  other  States, 
where  the  ordinary  means  of  education  yet  survived,  hop 
ing  in  this  way  to  save  them  from  a  portion  of  the  worst 
horrors  of  the  unhappy  war  then  in  progress.  This  I  assert 
upon  my  own  personal  knowledge,  and  am  prepared  to 
give  names  and  dates  when  called  on  for  that  purpose. 

Mr.  Seddon  had  been  at  one  time  a  member  of  the 
Federal  Congress.  There  he  had  signalized  himself  as  a 
furious  Statc-risrhts  man.  In  the  celebrated  Peace  Con- 


148  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

ference  of  1861  he  distinguished  himself  by  going  beyond 
all  others  in  demanding  additional  guarantees  for  the 
protection  of  the  slave-holding  interest.  Just  before  he 
received  the  appointment  of  Secretary  of  War  he  had 
been  very  badly  beaten  in  the  Petersburg  Congressional 
district  by  a  gentleman  of  more  conservative  views. 

This  person  I  had  accidentally  met  on  Pennsylvania 
avenue,  in  Washington,  in  the  summer  of  1850.  He  had 
the  presumption  to  tell  me  that  he  intended  to  go  to  Mis 
sissippi  in  order  to  report  to  my  constituents  there  my 
gross  misrepresentation  of  them  in  Congress  in  connection 
with  the  compromise  measures  of  that  period.  I  imme 
diately  told  him  that  I  would  meet  him  upon  the  questions 
involved  in  these  measures  before  his  own  constituents,  in 
Richmond,  but  he  did  not  deem  it  prudent  to  take  up 
my  challenge. 

Such  are  some  of  the  beauties  of  secession ;  and  such 
was  the  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  conduct  of  those  who 
had  attempted  to  break  up  the  Federal  Union  in  order 
to  avoid  the  imaginary  danger  of  consolidation  ! 

To  show  the  spirit  of  imperial  domination  then  raging 
in  Richmond  I  will  relate  a  curious  anecdote,  for  the 
truth  of  which  I  personally  vouch.  One  morning,  very 
early  in  the  day,  I  was  walking  through  the  Capitol 
grounds  in  Richmond,  when  I  met  a  respectable  officer  in 
the  employment  of  the  Confederate  Government,  who  at 
once  inquired  of  me  whether  Mr.  Davis  ever  got 
drunk.  I  told  him  I  thought  not,  and  inquired 
his  reason  for  propounding  this  question ;  to  which 
he  responded  as  follows:  "Mr.  Davis,  Mr.  Mai- 
lory,  and  others  had  visited  Drewry's  Bluff  on  yesterday. 
When  the  company  reached  Rocketts,  on  their  return, 
Mr.  Davis,  not  finding  his  carriage  there  to  meet  him,  as 
he  had  expected,  determined  to  go  home  on  foot.  Ilia 
lady  was  accompanying  him.  They  had  to  pass  the  Lib- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  149 

by  Prison  in  their  route.  When  they  reached  this  well- 
known  spot,  where  it  would  seem  that  Mr.  Davis  had 
never  been  before,  it  being  twilight,  the  sentinel  on  duty 
before  the  prison  door  would  not  have  been  able  at  once 
to  distinguish  the  Confederate  chief  even  if  he  had  been 
previously  familiar  with  his  august  person.  But  in 
point  of  fact  he  did  not  know  him  at  all,  never  having 
seen  him  face  to  face  in  his  life.  He  challenged  the  new 
comers  accordingly,  as  was  to  have  been  expected.  Upon 
this  Mr.  Davis  announced  that  he  was  Jefferson 
Davis,  President  of  the  Confederate  States  of  Ameri 
ca.  Says  the  sentinel :  'I  wish  I  knew  this  to  be 
true,  but  really  I  do  not  know  Mr.  Davis,  and  I  can  not 
allow  you  to  pass ;'  when  Mr.  Davis,  drawing  his  sword- 
cane,  sprang  toward  the  sentinel  with  fierce  and  angry 
menaces  upon  his  lips.  The  sentinel  pointed  his  piece 
directly  toward  his  person,  and  would  have  shot  him, 
then  and  there,  but  for  the  prompt  and  fearless  interposi 
tion  of  Mrs.  Davis,  who,  assuring  the  honest  soldier  upon 
her  honor  that  this  was  Jefferson  Davis,  and  her  hus 
band  ;  the  sentinel,  faltering  under  her  influence,  agreed 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  letting  Davis  and  his  lady 
pass.  And  so  they  did  ;  but  so  soon  as  Mr.  Davis  got  to 
his  home  he  sent  for  General  Winder,  informed  him  of 
the  serious  indignity  which  had  been  done  him  by  one 
of  his  subordinates,  and  ordered  his  immediate  arrest, 
with  a  view  to  his  condign  punishment.  Winder  respect 
fully  remonstrated  against  this  course  of  proceeding. 
Davis  got  into  a  towering  passion,  and  threatened  to  re 
move  Winder  if  he  did  not  obey  the  order  which  had 
been  given  him  immediately.  Upon  this  the  young  man 
was  arrested,  and  is  now  in  custody." 

1  asked  the  gentleman  who  o;ave  me  this  information 

o  o 

if  either  of  the  editors  in  Richmond  knew  of  the  affair. 
He  replied  that  he  had  given  a  full  account  of  the  par- 


150  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ticulars  recited  to  a  reporter  for  the  J&caminer.  Fearing 
the  effect  of  such  a  publication  as  was  now  likely  to  be 
made,  I  besought  my  young  friend  not  to  mention  the 
matter  again,  and  proceeded  at  once  to  the  office  of  the 
Examiner,  where  I  persuaded  its  editor  not  to  make  any 
publication  in  his  paper  of  an  occurrence  so  ridiculous 
and  disgusting,  and  thus  succeeded  in  getting  it  for  the 
time  suppressed. 

I  have  been  frequently  asked  whether  Mr.  Davis  made 
any  money  by  the  war  in  which  lie  and  his  associates  had 
succeeded  in  involving  the  cotton  States,  and  to  this 
question  I  have  never  been  ahle  to  respond  satisfactorily. 
L  know- that  I  always  expected  him  and  Mr.  Benjamin  to 
get  rich  by  the  war,  and  I  often  ventured  to  predict  that 
they  would  be  found  whenever  the  Confederate  cause 
caved  in  to  have  provided  largely  for  themselves  in 
Liverpool,  whither  the  Confederate  Government  had 
sent  considerable  amounts  of  cotton.  Mr.  Benjamin's 
sudden  flight  to  England  immediately  on  his  decamping 
from  Richmond  was  to  my  mind  always  quite  a  suspi 
cious  circumstance,  knowing  well  as  I  did  that  devoted 
fondness  .for  money  which  he  had  evinced  even  from  his 
earliest  boyhood.  Mr.  Davis'  subsequent  movement  in 
the  same  direction  was  a  strong  confirmatory  fact.  The 
public  is  at  least  entitled  to  a  fuller  explanation  on  this 
subject  than  it  has  yet  received;  and  those  who  advanced 
their  all  in  gold  and  silver  to  the  Confederate  officials, 
when  that  Government  was  in  its  last  agony — receiving 
therefor  only  drafts  on  Liverpool,  never  yet  met — are 
fairly  entitled  to  a  juster  consideration  at  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Davis  and  his  associates  than  they  have  yet  received. 
I  knT)w  a  number  of  instances  of  this  kind,  over  which 
my  heart  has  bled,  and  for  the  honor  of  human  nature 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  something  will  yet  be  done  to  al 
leviate  such  unmerited  sufferings.  There  is  one  consider- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  151 

able  fund  about  which  I  personally  know  something,  and 
in  reference  to  which  many  persons  would  now  like 
much  to  know  more  than  I  am  prepared  to  tell  them. 
Some  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  gold,  or  more, 
were  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Jacob  Thompson  for  cer 
tain  war  purposes,  which  he  took  with  him  to  Canada, 
and  deposited  in  the  bank  of  M^r.  Porterfield,  (now  a 
Nashville  neighbor  of  mine  of  the  greatest  respectability.) 
Mr.  Porterfield  told  me  in  Montreal,  in  the  summer  of 
1865,  that  Thompson  had,  a  few  days  before  my  arrival 
there,  drawn  out  all  his  money  and  taken  it  with  him  to 
England.  The  war  was  then  over,  for  Lee  and  Joe 
Johnston  had  both  surrendered.  Now,  what  did  Mr. 
Thompson  do  with  this  large  sum?  Did  he  and  Mr. 
Davis  divide  it  between  them  ?  Did  the  immortal  Ben 
jamin  get  his  share,  or  has  the  whole  amount  been  subse 
quently  distributed  in  charity  among  the  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  unhappy  -people  of  the 
South  ruined  bv  following  the  fortunes  of  their  once 

v  £5 

loved  and  honored  leader,  and  testing  with  him  the  true 
value  of  the  once  venerated  State-rights-secession-Demo- 
cratic  creed  ? 

I  once  witnessed  a  curious  scene  in  connection  with  the 
conscription  law  of  the  Confederate  Government.  A 
young  gentleman  of  good  family,  who  belonged  to  a  well- 
known  Quaker  connection  in  the  county  of  Maury,  and 
in  the  State  of  Tennessee,  had  been  run  down  by  one  of 
the  official  bloodhounds  employed  by  the  Davis  despotism 
to  collect  conscripts.  This  young  man  was  about  eigh 
teen  or  nineteen  years  of  age ;  he  was  blooming,  hand 
some,  genteel  in  his  manners,  and  well-dressed.  When 
brought  into  camp  he  at  once  stated  that  he  was  of 
Quaker  origin  and  creed ;  that  he  had  been  brought  up 
to  believe  that  all  fighting  was  wrong,  and  that  to  shed 
blood  upon  the  field  of  battle  was  the  greatest  crime  of 


152  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

which  huimin  nature  could  possibly  he  guilty,  lie  WHS 
singularly  intelligent,  and  sustained  his  non-cornhative  at 
titude  with  great  ingenuity  and  with  the  aid  of  most  aj>- 
posite  citations  from  Scripture.  General  Manney,  the 
commander  holding  this  interesting  young  man  in 
charge,  came  to  me  at  Chattanooga,  and  told  me  how 
much  he  was  perplexed  and  agonized  with  this  case,  and 
requested  me  to  visit  the  young  prisoner  in  cam})  and 
talk  to  him.  So  indeed  I  did.  My  conversation  with 
him  was  a  long  and  public  one.  I  could  not  overcome 
his  objections  to  enlisting,  and  to  the  last  he  refused  to 
bear  arms  in  the  fratricidal  war  then  going  on.  General 
Manney  did  not  shoot  him,  as  the  conscript  law  directed  ; 
his  humanity  forbade  this.  The  young  man  underwent 
great  sufferings  of  every  kind  for  some  months,  and  the 
war  at  last  ending  he  returned  to  the  enjoyment  of  life, 
liberty,  and  the  society  of  his  family.  I  have  seen  him 
repeatedly  in  the  last  year  or  two.  lie  recently  obtained 
a  patent  for  some  useful  invention,  and  is  now  a  prosper 
ous  and  happy  citizen. 

Will  our  hot-blooded  and  mercurial  Southern  people 
ever  be  persuaded  to  try  another  secession  experiment,  or 
will  they  hereafter  remain  firmly  and  immovably  at 
tached  to  the  Hag  of  their  fathers?  Will  they  not  resist 
the  first  efforts  of  the  over-zealous  devotees  of  party  to 
draw  them  into  an  attitude  antagonist-leal  to  the  Con 
stitution  and  laws  of  their  country  ? 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  153 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XVI. 

MK.     LINCOLN — MR.    DAVIS — GENERAL    JOSEPH    E.    JOHNSTON- 
GENERAL     SHERMAN. 

The  most  censurable  act  ever  performed  by  Mr.  Davis 
as  the  chosen  chief  of  the  Confederate  Government  has 
been  already  alluded  to,  but  not  expatiated  on.  President 
Lincoln,  with  that  true  humanity  of  spirit  and  genuine 
magnanimity  which  belong  to  all  great  and  elevated  char 
acters,  had  traveled  from  Washington  to  the  mouth  of  the 
James  river  to  tender  just  and  generous  terms  of  peace  to 
his  insurgent  fellow-citizens.  These  terms  had  been  dis 
tinctly  made  known  to  the  Commissioners  whom  Mr.  Da 
vis  had  been  compelled  by  stress  of  circumstances  to  send 
to  him  for  consultation.  The  Commissioners,  bound  up 
by  prohibitory  instructions  to  the  contrary,  had  been  able 
to  make  no  peace.  To  return  without  having  attained 
the  object  which  at  least  two  of.  these  gentlemen  had  so 
much  desired  to  effect  had  doubtless  been  to  them  a  source 
of  much  unhappiness  and  chagrin.  But  yet  undoubtedly 
some  progress  had  been  made,  for  it  had  been  ascertained 
that  the  most  mild  and  liberal  terms  would  be  accorded 
to  the  people  of  the  Confederate  States ;  indeed,  almost 
any  terms  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  the  Union. 
They  might  well  have  hoped,  when  on  their  way  back  to 
Richmond,  Mr.  Davis,  in  whom  most  unfortunately  the 
whole  power  to  treat  for  peace  had  been  centered,  would 
gladly  embrace  the  opportunity  of  stopping  the  effusion 
of  blood  and  restoring  the  blessings  of  concord  and  broth 
erly  amity.  If  they  expected  this  they  were  most  pain 
fully  disappointed,  for  so  soon  as  Mr.  Davis  heard  what 
had  been  the  kind  and  conciliatory  language  of  Mr.  Lin- 


154  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

coin,  he  at  once  said  that  i  If  must  not  be  known  cither  to 
Congress  or  ~  the  people  of  the  insurgent  States  that  a  just 
and  honorable  peace  had  been  found  to  be  a  practica 
ble  thing,  but  the  truth  must  be  concealed  from  those  so 
well  entitled  to  know  it,  and  a  vile  falsehood  most  cruelly 
promulgated.  So  a  meeting  was  convoked  for  that  very 
night  at  the  African  Church,  in  Richmond,  where  he  and 
Mr.  Benjamin  both  attended  and  made  known  'to  those 
assembled  the  fact  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  only  agreed  to 
accept  their  absolute  submission,  and  would  give  no  guar 
antee  whatever  of  his  future  good  treatment  of  those  who 
had  been  enlisted  in  rebellion.  A  viler  or  more  mischiev 
ous  fraud  was  naver  perpetrated,  but  the  success  of  the 
movement  was  complete,  those  assembled  at  the  African 
Church  relying  on  the  solemn  but  utterly  false  representa 
tions  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  suppos 
ing  that  the  continuance  of  the  war  was  now  inevitable, 
unless  they  were  prepared  to  submit  to  permanent  dishonor 
and  never-ending  servitude.  So  a  deluded  and  betrayed 
people  resolved  to  renew  the  struggle  for  independence 
with  fresh  energy  and  determination! 

There  is  nothing  else  so  disgraceful  as  this  known 
in  history,  and  coming  generations  will  be  sure  to  credit 
these  monsters  of  iniquity  with  all  the  precious  lives  de 
stroyed,  and  all  the  devastation  afterward  committed  in 
the  further  progress  of  the  war. 

Mr.  Davis  having  adroitly  managed  to  attract  the  at 
tention  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  Secretary  to  himself  as  the 
only  possible  medium  of  pacification,  and  having  awak 
ened  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  some  hope  of  a  speedy  termi 
nation  of  the  war,  the  mission  which  I  had  undertaken 
was  completely  baffled. 

Generous  men  will  excuse  my  here  briefly  stating  that 
when,  after  delivering  a  four-hours'  speech  in  the  Confed 
erate  Congress,  in  which  I  took  occasion  solemnly  to  warn 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  155 

my  unfortunate  countrymen  of  the  danger  then  menacing 
them,  and  of  which  so  many  of  them  seemed  to  he  wholly 
unconscious,  and  fortifying  my  prophetic  foreshadowings 
of  the  early  fall  of  Richmond  by  the  solemn  citation  of 
that  well-known  couplet  from  Campbell : 

•'  The  sunset  of  life  lends  a  mystical  lore, 
And  coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before." 

I  left  that  doomed  city,  and  in  a  few  days  addressed  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Speaker  Bocock,  in  which  the  following  lan 
guage  occurred  : 

"  SIR  :  In  an  hour  or  two,  if  some  unseen  impediment  does  not  arise 
to  defeat  the  execution  of  my  present  design,  I  shall  cross  the  majestic 
river  upon  the  banks  of  which  have  reposed  for  many  generations  the 
ashes  of  my  forefathers,  and  in  all  probability  visit  the  city  of  Washing 
ton,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  or  not  it  is  practicable  to 
obtain  for  the  people  of  the  Confederate  States  an  early  and  an  honor 
able  peace,  after  the  most  bloody  and  exhausting  struggle  of  arms,  and 
in  all  respects  the  most  deplorable  one,  which  has  yet  found  record 
upon  the  page  of  history.  No  human  being  save  myself  is  responsible 
for  this  movement,  nor  should  I  have  undertaken  it  but  for  the  well- 
known  fact  that  the  two  Executive  departments,  at  Washington  and 
Richmond,  have  relations  with  each  other  which  render  it  almost  im 
possible  that  regular  diplomatic  intercourse  should  occur  between 
them,  and  the  additional  fact  that  the  two  houses  of  the  Confederate 
Congress  seem  to  be  altogether  averse  to  the  doing  of  anything  where 
by  a  cessation  of  hostilities  and  the  restoration  of  peace  and  amity  may 
be  secured  between  those  who,  in  rny  deliberate  judgment,  should 
never  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  drawn  into  a  war  so  unnatural 
and  fratricidal  in  its  character,  so  destructive  of  the  best  interests  of 
civilization  and  Christianity,  and  which,  should  it  continue  to  be  prose 
cuted  for  four  years  more,  must  inevitably,  from  the  operation  of  war 
itself,  result  in  the  establishment  of  two  of  the  mostgrinding  despotisms 
the  world  has  yet  knowa.  Should  I  succeed  in  my  present  undertak 
ing,  my  country  and  the  cause  of  freedom  will  be  materially  benefited. 
Should  I  fail,  discredit,  ridicule,  and  even  contempt  will  be  most  surely 
visited  upon  me  in  full  measure ;  even  many  sensible  and  good  men 
will  recognize  me  as  a  mere  visionary  projector  ;  while  the  envious,  the 
illiberal,  the  malevolent,  the  ignoble  time-servers  of  the  period,  the  slav 
ish  idolaters  of  power,  \vill  not  scruple  to  denounce  me  as  a  traitor  to 
what  is  known  as  the  Confederate  Government.  For  all  this  I  am  pre 
pared,  as  I  likewise  am  prepared  to  undergo  trial  for  alleged  treason 


15()  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

to  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  should  those  now  occupying 
the  seats  of  authority  in  Washington  city  deem  this  to  be  the  lilting 
treatment  of  a  voluntary  ambassador  of  peace.  I  hope  that  it  will  not 
appear  either  vainglorious  or  egotistical  in  me  to  declare  further  that 
should  it  be  my  fate  to  die  upon  the  scaffold  in  consequence  of  my  un 
dertaking  a  mission  sanctioned  by  some  of  the  wisest  and  most  vir_ 
tuous  men  now  upholding  the  Confederate  cause,  I  feel,  notwithstand 
ing — though  my  sufferings  will  awaken  most  probably  but  little  of 
commiserative  sympathy  in  any  quarter — that  in  passing  from  the  stage 
of  mortal  existence,  I  shall  be  able  sincerely  to  exclaim  in  the  language 
of  classic  poesy : 

*     *     *     <•  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori."  ' 

The  public  has  been  long  apprised  that  my  Washington 
city  trip  was  rudely  intercepted  ;  that  I  was  held  in  mili 
tary  custody  for  several  days  by  order  of  Mr.  Davis  ;  that 
I  was  afterward  discharged  on  habeas  corpus  ;  that  I  yet 
persevered  in  my  original  determination  to  obtain  peace 
could  it  be  obtained  on  honorable  terms  ;  that  with  a  view 
to  this  end,  in  cold  and  inclement  weather,  and  amid  snow 
and  ice,  I  penetrated  to  the  military  headquarters  of  Gen 
eral  Devin,of  the  Federal  army,  where  I  was  courteously 
entertained  and  allowed  to  correspond  with  the  Washing- 
011  authorities;  that  failing  in  my  efforts  to  obtain  a 
declaration  of  the  terms  of  peace  which  I  was  seeking,  I 
declined  giving  them  the  names  of  my  advisers  and  con- 
sociates,  and  submitted  voluntarily  to  imprisonment  in 
New  York,  previous  to  my  setting  sail  for  the  European 
continent ;  that  while  in  New  York  I  again  opened  cor 
respondence  with  the  Government  with  a  view  to  pacifi 
cation,  but  with  equal  want  of  success,  and  that  for  reasons 
already  stated,  I  then  embarked  for  Liverpool. 

From  on  board  the  steamship  in  which  I  sailed,  I 
wrote  a  long  and  earnest  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  warning 
him  of  the  danger  which  lay  in  his  relying  too  confidently 
upon  securing  peace  through  the  medium  of  Mr.  J)avis' 
stringently-instructed  peace  commissioners  to  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Norfolk,  and  urging  him  to  send  forth  his  own 


CASKET   OF    REMINISCENCES.  157 

proclamation  to  the  Southern  people,  in  which  should  be 
embodied  the  terms  of  pacification,  and,  among  other 
things,  I  said  this  to  him  : 

"  I  write  to  yon  from  mid-ocean,  while  the  stormy  billows  of  the  sur 
rounding  sea  are  every  moment  reminding  me  of  that  fearful  scene  of 
commotion  and  turmoil  which  I  have  left  behind  me,  in  a  land  once  so 
peaceful  and  happy,  but  now  marked  so  wofully  with  ravage  and  the 
copious  shedding  of  fraternal  blood  in  civil  strife.  Sir,  allow  me  to  say, 
in  all  earnestness  and  sincerity,  that  in  my  opinion  the  ancient  classic 
poets  have  not  described  Neptune  himself  as  having  more  power  as  the 
grand  composer  of  the  waves  of  the  vexed  and  angry  ocean  than  you 
now  possess,  in  your  high  official  character,  for  calming  the  troubles 
which  at  present  so  deplorably  convulse  the  enlightened  and  patriotic 
freemen  who  inhabit  our  own  native  America.  You  hold  the  trident 
of  pacification  in  your  hands.  May  that  trident  be  wielded  with  true 
benevolence  and  wisdom,  and  in  the  genuine  Washington  spirit!" 

Seven  weeks  only  was  I  absent  from  New  York  when  I 
returned  thither,  after  having  rapidly  traversed  England, 
France,  Switzerland,  and  Italy.  The  first  news  which  I 
received  on  entering  the  port  of  New  York  was  that  of 
the  surrender  of  the  valiant,  upright,  and  noble-minded 
Lee,  an  event  which  I  had  so  long  seen  to  be  inevitable. 
Davis,  Benjamin,  and  other  well-known  official  person 
ages,  I  soon  learned,  had  made  their  escape  from  the 
Virginia  capital,  and  were  making  tracks  God  only  knew 
whitherward.  Davis  and  his  dapper  little  attache  tarried 
just  long  enough  to  make  themselves  ridiculous,  by  the 
formal  announcement  that  the  war  would  be  yet  vigor  - 
ously  prosecuted,  even  after  Lee  s  own  heroic  heart  had 
been  forced  to  despair  of  the  Confederate  cause. 

"  Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast; 
Man  never  is,  but  always  to  be  blest." 

Benjamin  flies  precipitately  toward  the  sea,  and  passes 
rapidly  across  the  Atlantic,  in  the  direction  of  Liverpool, 
to  look  after  the  Confederate  cotton  sales  there  going  on, 
and  soon  gets  ready  in  London  to  publish  rather  a  super 
fluous  legal  work  entitled  "  Benjamin  on  Sales,"  soon  him- 


158  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

self  as  he  might  fondly  anticipate  to  be  enveloped  in  the 
official  wig  and  gown  of  Queen's  counsel.  Davis,  like 
Charles  V,  Charles  II  of  England,  and  several  other  illus 
trious  worthies  of  ancient  and  modern  times,  seeks  pro 
tection  from  habiliments  of  a  similar  cut,  but  alas!  in  vain, 
lie  is  intercepted  on  his  way  to  Texas,  where  he  had 
hoped  to  find  himself  soon  at  the  head  of  a  large  and  val 
iant  army,  to  be  composed  in  part  of  100,000  French  sol 
diers  fresh  from  the  spoliation  of  Mexico.  Had  he  passed 
the  Father  of  Waters  in  safety,  what  chance  was  there  of 
his  bringing  back  with  him  an  armed  force  large  enough 
to  have  reconquered  the  Southern  States  lost  by  the  un 
trained  and  luckless  valor  of  Lee  and  Joe  Johnston  ?  Had 
such  a  reconquest  been  consummated,  what  probability 
was  there  that  the  warm-hearted  Southern  people  would, 
in  a  burst  of  convulsive  gratitude,  have  greeted  him  with 
the  cheering  exclamation,  "  Vive  rEi^ereurf 

That  he  had  some  such  vain  fancy  as  this  is  certain.  Gen 
eral  Toombs  told  me,  in  fact,  on  my  reaching  Richmond, 
in  the  winter  of  1861,  that  the  ambitious  Confederate 
President  had  already  made  out  his  list  of  field-marshals, 
and  that,  in  order  to  defeat  the  imperial  aspirations  of  his 
lordly  civil  chief,  he  had  himself  thought  it  most  prudent 
to  resign  the  Department  of  State,  which  he  had  for  some 
time  held,  hoping  that  by  taking  a  position  in  the  army 
he  might  be  able  to  give  important  aid  in  baffling  the  Na 
poleonic  aspirations  of  this  first  champion  of  American 
Gesarism,  wrho,  I  sincerely  hope  and  believe,  will  be  the 
last. 

Surely  no  one  can  now  doubt  that  secession,  or  the 
breaking  up  of  the  States  which  composed  this  Union  into 
separate  sectional  organizations  must  inevitably  result  in 
perpetual  border  wars ;  that  border  wars  would  necessitate 
the  organization  of  large  standing  armies  in  each  of  the 

o  c_>  o 

separate    nationalities ;    whence    an    imperial    despotism 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  159 

would  arise  almost  immediately.  So  that,  in  fact,  the 
shortest  and,  perhaps,  the  only  certain  road  to  Csesarism 
in  this  country  passes  along  by  the  grim  and  turreted 
castle  of  Democratic-State-ri  glits  secessionism. 

General  Joe  Johnston  had  told  me  in  the  commence 
ment  of  1864,  with  that  ready  and  decisive  frankness  for 
which  he  is  so  remarkable,  and  in  response  to  a  special  in 
quiry  addressed  to  him  by  me,  that  whenever  General 
Sherman  should  pass  to  the  sea-coast  through  Georgia, 
march  through  South  Carolina  and  North  Carolina  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Grant's  army  in  Virginia,  Richmond 
would  be  able  to  hold  out  no  longer,  and  there  would  soon 
be  an  end  of  the  Confederate  struggle  for  independence. 
Mr.  Davis  kindly  opened  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  to 
him  by  removing  Joe  Johnston  from  the  command  of  the 
Confederate  army  defending  Atlanta,  and  sending  it,  un 
der  the  command  of  Hood,  through  north  Alabama,  to 
Middle  Tennessee.  Upon  this  insane  movement  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Davis  being  made  known  to  the  Confederate 
Congress,  I  did  not  fail  to  denounce  the  same  in  language 
of  the  most  emphatic  decrial,  for  doing  which  I  was 
charged  by  Mr.  Davis'  still  idolatrous  admirers  with  be 
ing  both  presumptuous  and  unjust.  In  General  Grant's 
report  of  that  campaign  the  following  very  striking  lan 
guage  is  to  be  found  : 

"  General  Sherman,  immediately  on  the  fall  of  Atlanta,  put  his 
armies  in  camp  in  and  about  the  place,  and  made  all  preparations  for 
refitting  and  supplying  them  for  future  service.  The  great  length  of 
road  from  Atlanta  to  Cumberland  river,  however,  which  had  to  be 
guarded,  allowed  the  troops  but  little  rest.  During  this  time  Jefferson 
Davis  made  a  speech  in  Macon,  Georgia,  which  was  reported  in  the 
papers  in  the  South,  and  soon  became  known  to  the  whole  country,  dis 
closing  the  plans  of  the  enemy,  thus  enabling  General  Sherman  fully 
to  meet  them.  He  exhibited  the  weakness  of  supposing  that  an  army 
that  had  been  beaten  and  fearfully  decimated  in  a  vain  attempt  at  the 
defensive  could  successfully  undertake  the  offensive  against  the  army 
that  had  so  often  defeated  it." 


160  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

The  double  surrender  of  Generel  R.  E.  Lee  and  General 
Joseph  E.  Johnston  left  no  doubt  whatever  that  there 
would  soon  be  a  universal  cessation  of  hostilities.  All 
had  now  been  done  for  the  support  of  the  Confederate 
cause  that  military  skill,  ardent  and  persevering  valor,  and 
a  most  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  principle  could  do.  The 
soldiers  who  filled  the  Confederate  ranks  had  for  the  most 
part  not  at  all  participated  in  the  movements  which  ulti 
mately  led  to  armed  collision  between  the  assailants  and 
the  supporters  of  the  Federal  Union.  But  few  of  the  rank 
and  file  on  either  side  had  at  any  time  embarked  in  sec 
tional  controversy  and  strife.  They  were  nearly  all  true- 
hearted  and  brave  American  citizens,  who  loved  peace  and 
social  brotherhood,  and  had  become  soldiers  under  what, 
on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other,  was  felt  to  be  a  sacred 
sense  of  duty.  Never  had  more  valor  been  displayed  than 
marked  the  bloody  conflicts  of  those  four  fearful  and  san 
guinary  years  which  rolled  away  after  the  impolitic  and 
criminal  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter.  The  displays  of  hero 
ism  made  on  either  side  are  part  and  portion  of  the  "  moral 
treasures  of  the  country,  and  the  whole  country  ;"  and 
the  day  will  assuredly  come,  though  perhaps  not  quite  so 
soon  as  all  liberal-minded  men  are  hoping  and  praying  that 
it  may,  when  a  general  oblivion  of  all  that  is  painful  in  the 
past,  and  a  disinterested  appreciation  of  all  that  was  no 
bly  and  grandly  done  on  either  side,  will  make  us  all  once 
more  compatriots,  friends,  and  brethren. 

The  wise  and  magnanimous  compact  of  surrender,  signed 
upon  the  soil  of  the  Old  North  State  by  General  William 
T.  Sherman  and  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  I  have  ever 
regarded  as  eminently  creditable  to  the  distinguished  com 
manders  with  whom  this  compact  originated  ;  and  though 
the  envy  of  some,  and  the  selfish  illiberality  of  others, 
may  for  a  time  have  succeeded  in  attaching  some  doubt 
as  to  the  policy  and  propriety  of  this  much-discussed  men- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  161 

sure,  there  are  but  few  if  any  men  of  sound  understanding 
now  to  be  found  anywhere  who  do  not  regard  the  terms 
of  surrender  originally  agreed  upon  as  entitling  both  Gen 
eral  Sherman  and  General  Johnston  to  very  great  praise. 

The  delicate  and  truly  chivalrous  demeanor  of  General 
Grant  in  employing  his  honored  friend  and  comrade  in 
arms,  General  Sherman,  to  conduct,  from  first  to  last,  the 
reactionary  proceeding  directed  by  President  Johnson  to 
be  carried  on  is  worthy  of  all  praise,  and  is  one  of  those 
high-toned  and  heroic  acts  which  most  dignify  and  em 
blazon  the  page  of  history. 

In  reference  to  General  Sherman  and  General  Joe  John 
ston,  I  have  a  few  words  of  just  commendation  to  offer, 
the  utterance  of  which,  though  it  may  not  at  all  benefit 
cither  of  these  distinguished  individuals,  I  feel  to  be  due 
to  my  own  long-cherished  opinions  and  feelings. 

There  are  few  men  on  the  continent  of  a  braver  soul,  of 
a  more  cultured  mind,  or  of  more  urbane  and  gentlemanly 
manners  than  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston.  I  have  never 
yet  heard  his  courage,  his  disinterestedness,  or  his  abili 
ties  called  in  question  ;  and  I  sincerely  hope  that  the 
day  is  not  far  distant,  should  war  agaiii  arise  in  the  land, 
when  this  meritorious  soldier  will  be  once  more  found  bat 
tling  gloriously  and  successfully  against  some  foreign  foe 
side  by  side  with  such  men  as  Sherman  and  other  distin 
guished  defenders  of  the  Union  in  the  recent  struggle  of 
arms,  under  the  immortal  Stars  and  Stripes,  beneath  which 
he  has  so  often  in  other  days  won  undying  renown. 

General  Sherman  I  have  long  and  intimately  known. 
I  first  became  acquainted  with  him  in  California  nearly 
twenty  years  ago,  where  I  had  business  dealings  with  him 
from  time  to  time  of  a  very  important  character.  -He  was 
then  a  member  of  the  great  banking  firm  of  Lucas,  Turner 
&  Company,  which  was  perhaps  the  strongest  and  best 
regulated  banking  association  then  to  be  found  on  the 
HR 


1<)2  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Pacific  coast.  General  Sherman's  business  habits  at  that 
time  were  such  as  commanded  for  him  universal  respect 
and  confidence  ;  nor  was  there  a  banker  in  California  who 
was  more  universally  commended  for  his  justice,  his  lib 
erality,  and  his  financial  skill.  He  was  remarkable  for 
his  public  spirit,  and  manifested  a  deep  interest  in  all  that 
concerned  the  prosperity  and  welfare  of  his  then  recently 
adopted  home.  No  man  ever  had  more  diligence,  more 
activity,  and  more  perseverance.  Self-love  has  never,  even 
for  an  instant,  I  am  sure,  predominated  in  his  bosom  over 
the  feelings  of  generosity  and  manliness.  His  personal  ap 
pearance  is  most  commanding  ;  in  conversation  he  is  frank, 
cordial,  and  obliging ;  he  has  not  a  particle  of  hauteur  or 
arrogance,  and  he  has  the  manners  of  a  high-bred,  affable, 
and  warm-hearted  gentleman.  His  mind  is  quick,  vigor 
ous,  and  comprehensive  ;  and  he  talks  with  a  graceful  and 
impressive  elegance  upon  all  occasions  and  with  all  classes 
of  our  population,  lie  has  never  been  a  zealous  and  acri 
monious  partisan  in  politics,  and  I  think  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  he  had  never  voted  at  a  political  election  in  his 
life.  He  is  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  domestic  men  I 
ever  knew,  and  when  not  absorbed  in  his  public  duties  he 
is  prone,  above  most  men  I  know,  to  seek  the  society  of 
his  family  or  that  of  his  dear  and  trusted  friends. 

No  commander  on  either  side  during  the  late  sanguinary 
and  wasteful  war  was  more  active  and  energetic  than 
General  Sherman,  and  few  men  have  in  any  age  displayed 
more  ability  as  a  military  commander,  either  in  the  plan 
ning  of  grand  schemes  of  operation  or  in  carrying  these 
schemes  into  effect.  During  the  recent  war  he  wrote  and 
published  several  letters,  which,  at  the  time  of  their  ap 
pearance,  gave  more  or  less  annoyance  to  some  individuals 
or  classes  of  individuals.  But  these  letters  were  really 
very  well  adapted  to  the  attainment  of  the  objects  he  had 
at  the  time  in  view.  Mr.  Macaulay  very  truly  observes 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  163 

somewhere,  and  in  language  which  I  should  willingly 
enough  recite  here  did  I  bear  the  same  distinctly  in 
memory,  that  war  being  the  greatest  of  evils,  the  long  pro 
traction  of  hostilities  is,  if  possible,  to  be  avoided ;  and, 
therefore,  as  he  infers,  an  active,  vigorous,  and  awe-inspir 
ing  campaign  may  be,  in  general,  regarded  as  dictated  by 
an  enlightened  and  far-seeing  humanity.  I  am  rarely  so 
positive  in  my  language  as  I  feel  inclined  to  be  upon  the 
point  in  question ;  and  I  take  the  liberity  of  declaring 
that  I  do  not  think  that  there  lives  beneath  the  sun  a 
more  kind-hearted,  charitable,  and  genial  gentleman  than 
the  distinguished  subject  of  this  notice. 

When  about  sixteen  years  ago  the  second  vigilance  com 
mittee  was  organized  in  San  Francisco,  the  Governor  of  the 
State  of  California,  Mr.  Johnson,  sent  General  Sherman  the 
commission  of  major  general,  with  instructions  to  put  down 
the  forces  of  the,  committee  at  all  hazards.  He  accepted 
the  commission  tendered,  and  issued  a  proclamation  de- 
clarino;  his  determination  to  vindicate  the  wounded  ma- 

O 

jesty  of  the  law  ;  but  a  few  hours  of  calm  and  prudent 
consideration  of  the  matter  satisfied  him  that,  situated  as 
he  was  at  the  time,  with  the  fiscal  interests  of  thousands 
under  his  control,  it  would  be  both  unjust  and  unwise  to 
retain  this  commission.  So  he  sent  it  back  to  the  Gov 
ernor  at  once.  I  have  often  heard  his  conduct  at  this  con 
juncture  referred  to  in  conversation,  and  never  otherwise 
than  in  terms  of  respect  and  commendation. 

In  the  summer  of  1860, 1  met  General  Sherman  at  the 
Relay  House,  a  few  miles  on  this  side  of  Baltimore.  We 
conversed  for  some  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  in  a  frank 
and  unreserved  manner,  touching  the  dangerous  state  of 
affairs  then  existing  ;  and  he  agreed  with  me  in  the  opin 
ion  that  the  secessionists  of  the  South  were  determined  to 
bring  on  war  with  the  Government  for  the  purpose  of  es 
tablishing  slavery  in  the  Territories.  We  were  both  quite 


1(H  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

unhappy  at  the  prospect  then  apparently  opening  upon  the 
country.  I  recollect  well  that  he  said  to  me  with  more 
than  ordinary  emphasis:  "  Well,  if  such  a  war  is  com 
menced,  which  God  forbid,  I  shall  certainly  offer  my  ser 
vices  to  that  Government  which  educated  me  and  made 
me  what  I  am."  When  I  heard  of  him  in  the  war,  as  I 
did  very  often,  I  always  recurred  to  this  interesting  in 
terview.  I  am  satisfied  that  there  is  not  a  man  in  the 
Republic  more  absolutely  free  than  General  Sherman  from 
everything  like  sectional  prejudice,  of  which  there  arc 
man)'  and  conclusive  proofs. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XVII. 

GENERAL    TAYLOR — GEORGE    WASHINGTON    CUSTIS — THE  WASH 
INGTON  FAMILY GENERAL  ROBERT  E.  LEE. 

In  the  summer  of  1850  the  good  people  of  Washington 
determined  to  celebrate  the  4th  of  July  in  a  very  special 
manner,  and  I  had  the  honor  to  be  invited  to  deliver  an  ad 
dress  in  commemoration  of  our  national  independence  at 
the  Washington  Monument,  whither  a  vast  assemblage 
came,  including  President  Taylor  and  his  Cabinet.  I  en 
deavored,  so  far  as  it  was  in  my  power,  to  accommodate  the 
speech  which  was  to  be  uttered  to  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  the  hour,  and  to  do  what  I  could  to  harmonize  discordant 
opinions  and  guard  against  the  serious  sectional  collision 
then  plainly  menaced.  The  crisis  existing  was  indeed 
one  of  great  anxiety  and  peril.  Dark  and  portentous 
clouds  begloomed  the  political  firmament  in  two  opposite 
directions,  and  it  was  difficult  to  tell  whether  the  first 
movements  of  civil  strife  would  occur  in  consequence  of 
the  violent  action  of  extremists  of  the  North  or  of  those 
of  the  South.  Mr.  Hume  tells  us  that  the  ".extremes  are 
often  nearer  than  the  means,"  and  so  it  proved  in  this  in 
stance.  Mr.  Clay  and  his  friends  in  Congress  were  for 
immediately  staunching  the  bleeding  wounds  in  the  body 
politic  which  had  already  been  inflicted  by  the  hands  of 
over-heated  zealots  and  selfish  demagogues,  wholly  re 
gardless  of  the  public  repose  if  they  could  but  succeed  in 
accomplishing  their  own  unholy  ends.  What  was  called 
at  the  time  the  "Non-action"  policy,  in  opposition  to  the 
policy  of  adjusting  at  once  in  some  just  and  reasonable 
manner  the  questions  growing  out  of  African  slavery, 
was  equally  favored  by  the  extremists  in  Congress  from 


161)  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  North  and  the  extremists  of  the  South,  which  two 
factions  were  alike,  and  about  equally,  opposed  to  any 
settlement  which  might  have  the  effect  of  giving  the  na 
tion*1  quietude  and  safety  and  restore  the  suspended  feel 
ings  of  national  brotherhood.  Posterity  is  destined  to  ex 
perience  a  deep  and  painful  feeling  of  astonishment  at 
finding  that  there  were  in  the  bosom  of  the  Republic  at 
this  time  so  many  individuals,  who,  upon  various  pretexts, 
were  resolved  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  prolong  the  sea 
son  of  civil  strife  and  perpetuate  the  evils  of  sectional  dis 
trust  and  animosity  ;  and  still  more  surprise  will  probably 
be  felt  by  after  generations  at  learning  that  men  of  the 
most  conflicting  views  and  wishes  in  the  two  houses  of 
Congress  were  daily  and  hourly  conferring  with  each  other 
as  to  the  means  of  defeating  the  compromise  measures 
then  pending  in  the  Xational  Legislature,  and  keeping 
open  the  field  of  discussion  by  the  occupancy  of  which 
they  were  hoping  to  enhance  their  own  local  popularity. 
In  performing  the  task  which  had  been  allotted  to  me  of 
haranguing  the  multitudinous  concourse  which  was  in 
attendance  on  the  day  of  our  national  anniversary,  I  could 
not  but  be  sensible  of  all  the  delicate  and  embarrassing 
circumstances  which  surrounded  me,  and  what  I  said  on 
this  occasion  was  very  far,  indeed,  from  coming  up  to  my 
own  wishes,  or  perhaps  satisfying  the  reasonable  expecta 
tions  of  ethers.  It  is  gratifying  now  to  remember  that 
the  noble-hearted  patriot  who  then  occupied  the  Presi 
dential  chair  did  me  the  honor  to  thank  me,  formally  and 
publicly,  for  my  poor  but  well-intended  address,  which  act 
of  noble  generosity  was  performed  by  him  not  without 
visible  indications  of  strong  inward  emotion.  I  suppose 
that  a  purer  and  more  disinterested  devotee  to  liberty  than 
General  Zachary  Taylor  has  never  been  elevated  to  the 
Presidential  station.  If  he  committed  some  palpable 
errors  in  his  administration  of  the  Government,  and  in 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  167 

some  instances  yielded  foo  unreserved  a  confidence  to 
tricky  and  unscrupulous  counselors,  this  must  be  attributed 
altogether  to  his  want  of  civic  experience,  and  to  the  abso 
lute  guilelessness  of  his  own  nature. 

So  soon  as  the  oration  was  brought  to  a  close,  General 
Taylor  and  his  Cabinet  left  the  well-shaded  platform  upon 
which  they  had  been  seated,  and  prepared  to  return  to 
the  Presidential  mansion.  Had  they  done  so,  in  all  proba 
bility  he  would  have  been  still  living.  But  the  announce 
ment  being  made  that  some  traveler  had  just  brought 
with  him  to  Washington  a  handful  of  dust  from  the 
mausoleum  of  the  famed  Kosciusko,  and  that  it  was  de 
sired  that  all  present  should  witness  the  deposit  of  this 
same  dust  in  a  niche  prepared  for  its  reception  in  another 
part  of  the  monument,  where  several  additional  addresses 
would  be  made,  the  amiable  President  could  not  refuse 
the  honor  of  his  presence,  and  there  he  stood  for  more 
than  an  hour,  without  even  an  umbrella  over  his  head  for 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  time,  while  the  untempered 
rays  of  a  noonday  July  sun  were  pouring  down  in  full 
power  upon  him.  Before  the  ceremonial  was  at  an  end,  Gen 
eral  Taylor  was  thoroughly  exhausted,  and  going  home 
he  was  tempted  by  the  extreme  thirst  which  he  felt  and 
his  heated  and  languid  condition  to  swallow  down  copious 
draughts  of  cold  ice- water,  and  to  partake  of  unwholesome 
viands  sent  hastily  to  him  from  the  kitchen  in  a  balf- 
cooked  state,  which  speedily  brought  on  an  attack  from 
which  he  died  in  a  few  days. 

The  celebrated  George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  of 
Arlington,  was  the  principal  speaker  on  the  interesting 
occasion  just  alluded  to,  and  was  said  to  have  acquitted 
himself  of  the  task  assigned  in  his  usual  felicitous  manner. 
Mr.  Custis  had  been  long  renowned  as  a  brilliant  and  im 
pressive  declaimer,  and  even  in  very  early  life  had  de 
livered  several  orations  in  connection  with  the  stirring 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

public  events  of  the  time  which  had  awakened  much  admi 
ration.  I  recollect  especially  his  funeral  speech  in  honor  of 
General  Lingan,  a  Revolutionary  worthy  who  had  lost  his 
life  at  Baltimore  at  the  hands  of  a  furious  political  mob, 
amid  a  scene  of  riotous  violence  such  as  has  seldom  discred 
ited  the  character  of  the  intelligent  and  patriotic  city 
where  it  occurred.  I  knew  Mr.  Custis  well,  and  regarded 
him  always  as  an  amiable,  upright,  and  accomplished  gen 
tleman.  Had  he  been  born  poor,  he  would  probably  have 
attained  great  distinction  in  some  one  of  the  learned  pro 
fessions.  He  was  a  high-spirited,  sociable,  and  patriotic 
personage,  a  devoted  lover  of  the  National  Union,  and  a 
firm  supporter  of  the  Government.  For  the  character  of 
Washington,  of  whom  he  was  an  adopted  son,  he  ever 
cherished  the  most  profound  veneration,  and  often  whilst 
he  lived  did  he  supply  the  columns  of  the  National  Intelli 
gencer  with  graphic  and  intensely  interesting  reminiscences 
of  the  Father  of  his  Country. 

Mr.  Custis,  in  addition  to  his  being  the  grandson  of 
Mrs.  Washington,  was  a  descendant  of  the  celebrated 
Lord  Baltimore,  under  whose  auspices  the  State  of  Mary 
land  was  colonized  and  the  first  formal  edict  of  universal 
religious  toleration  adopted  and  promulgated.  The  maiden 
name  of  his  mother  was  Calvert.  After  the  decease  of  her 
first  husband  she  married  Dr.  David  Stuart,  by  whom  she 
had  a  numerous  progeny.  Many  of  her  descendants  of  the 
Stuart  name,  and  under  other  names  also,  are  yet  surviv 
ing  in  Virginia  and  elsewhere.  The  second  marriage  of 
Mrs.  Custis  took  place  during  the  trying  days  of  the 
Revolutionary  struggle,  and  those  who  shall  choose  to  look 
into  the  matter  more  deeply  will  find  among  the  letters  of 
General  Washington,  published  under  the  supervision  of 
Mr.  Sparkes,  a  highly  interesting  correspondence  relative 
to  this  same  marriage.  Dr.  Stuart  was  the  person  who 
first  called  General  Washington's  attention  to  the  famous 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  169 

Mazzei  letter,  written  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  a  very  interesting 
account  of  which  will  be  found  in  the  "  Life  of  Washing 

O 

ton,"  by  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall.  As  this  Dr.  Stuart 
was  the  eldest  brother  of  my  own  venerated  mother,  it 
may  become  me  to  say  nothing  special  here  in  commenda 
tion  of  his  ability,  his  remarkable  learning,  and  the  vir 
tues  which  adorned  his  character. 

Mr.  Custis  had  three  sisters,  arid  no  brother.  Of  these 
three  sisters  one  married  Mr.  Lawrence  Lewis,  of  Fairfax 
county,  in  the  State  of  Virginia.  Him  I  remember  well, 
and  I  entirely  concur  with  those  who  supposed  him  to  ex 
hibit  a  most  remarkable  likeness  in  person  to  General 
Washington,  whose  nephew  he  was  ;  at  least  he  was  so 
much  like  the  best  pictures  of  Washington  that  he  might 
be  well  supposed  by  one  who  did  not  know  otherwise  to 
have  actually  sat  for  them.  A  second  of  the  Miss  Oustises 
married  a  Mr.  John  Law,  a  nephew  of  Lord  Ellenborough, 
of  England.  Mr.  Law  had  spent  the  early  portion  of  his 
life  in  the  East  Indies.  He  is  reported  to  have  been  a 
man  of  much  learning  and  of  great  astuteness,  but  must 
have  been  also  very  eccentric  in  his  temper  and  his  habits 
of  life.  It  is  stated  of  him  that  his  mind  was  in  general 
so  deeply  occupied  with  matters  of  an  abstract  character 
that  he  became  occasionally  oblivious  of  ordinary  con 
cerns,  including  even  his  own  name,  and  that  having 
called  one  day  at  the  post  office  for  letters,  one  of  the 
clerks  there,  who  did  not  know  him,  inquired  his  name; 
upon  which  he  became  painfully  embarrassed.  "  Name  !" 
"  Name !"  he  said,  and  not  being;  able  to  <nve  the  desired 

'  O  O 

information  on  the  subject,  he  suddenly  turned  away  from 
the  post-office  window  and  moved  rapidly  toward  his 
home,  for  the  purpose  of  there  refreshing  his  memory, 
when,  meeting  some  acquaintance  who  said  to  him,  "  Good 
morning,  Mr.  Law,"  he  at  once  exclaimed,  "  Ah,  that  is 


170  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  name,''  and  went  back  quickly  to  the  post  office  to  get 
possession  of  his  letters  there  remaining. 

Mrs.  Peter,  another  sister,  I  knew  for  many  years.  She 
must  have  been  exceedingly  handsome  in  early  life.  When 
I  last  saw  her,  in  1851,  she  was  a  noble  looking  person,  full 
of  life  and  intelligence.  It  was  to  her  that  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  interesting  letters  ever  written  by  Wash 
ington  was  addressed,  on  the  occasion  of  her  attending  the 
first  public  social  party.  There  is  a  paternal  tenderness 
displayed  in  this  letter,  set  off,  as  it  is,  with  an  exquisite 
play  of  humor,  that  presents  Washington  in  one  of  his 
most  captivating  aspects.  No  one  can  now  read  this 
epistle  without  loving  this  great  and  good  man  far  more 
than  he  could  well  have  done  had  he  never  seen  its  con 
tents.  Mrs.  Peter  left  several  descendants,  who  are  fav 
orably  known  to  the  history  of  the  country.  She  was  a 
woman  of  large  intelligence  and  of  countless  virtues. 

I  have  heretofore  said  something  of  the  only  daughter 
of  Mr.  Custis,  Mrs.  Robert  E.  Lee.  I  shall  venture  to 
mention  now  one  or  two  facts  in  the  history  of  her  distin 
guished  husband  which  are  perhaps  at  present  not  fully 
known  to  all.  General  Lee  was  never  a  politician,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He  had  been  all  his  life  a 
soldier  and  a  faithful  and  efficient  one.  He  had  gained 
great  distinction  in  the  Mexican  war,  had  rendered  much 
and  valuable  service  often  on  various  fields  of  duty,  and 
had  a  right  to  expect  that  Avhen  General  Scott  should 
cither  die  or  resign  he  would  himself  succeed  that  illus 
trious  personage  in  the  chief  military  command  of  the 
Republic.  No  one  loved  more  intensely  the  Federal  Union 
which  his  forefathers  had  assisted  so  prominently  in  estab 
lishing  than  he  did.  He  had  never  given  his  sanction  to 
the  dogmas  of  nullification  and  secession.  His  mind  was 
too  sound  and  well  regulated  to  render  this  even  possible. 
He  had  done  nothing  whatever  in  1861  or  before  to  bring* 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  171 

on  the  crisis  which  he  found  himself  now  most  unexpect 
edly  compelled  to  meet.  He  saw  naught  whatever  in  the 
condition  of  the  country  to  justify  the  States  of  the  South 
in  assuming  the  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  General  Gov 
ernment  which  most  of  them  were  now  doing.  He  was 
clearly  and  undouhtingly  of  opinion  that  if  the  South  had 
experienced  grievances  or  was  menaced  with  injury  of  any 
kind,  it  would  be  far  better  to  seek  relief  by  pacific  expe 
dients  and  by  the  employment  of  known  constitutional 
remedies.  He  at  least  had  no  personal  ambition  to  gratify 
by  aiming  to  be  the  head  of  a  grand  revolutionary  move 
ment.  The  imagined  glories  of  despotic  military  rule  had 
no  charms  for  him.  He  ardently  loved  his  country,  and 
every  part  of  that  country.  He  was  greatly  attached  to 
.his  brothers  in  arms,  side  by  side  with  whom  he  had  in 
past  times  participated  in  so  many  difficult  and  sanguinary 
battles.  What  personal  advantage  could  he  expect  to  gain 
by  the  war  which  had  been  so  injudiciously  and  madly 
commenced,  and  which  no  sound-thinking  man  could  sup 
pose  was  likely  to  have  any  result  but  that  which  was 
afterward  experienced  ?  It  has  been  said  of  late  that  on  his 
arrival  in  Washington,  on  the  18th  of  April,  1861,  the 
command  of  the  army  of  the  Government  was  tendered 
him,  and  that  he  declined  it.  This  fact  I  see  now  stated 
positively  upon  the  authority  of  the  Hon.  Montgomery 
.Blair,  who  must  have  been  correctly  informed  as  to  this 
matter.  General  Lee  is  reported  to  have  declined  it,  and 
General  Scott  is  said  to  have  thus  briefly  addressed  him 
on  the  occasion  :  "  Lee,  you  have  made  the  greatest  mis 
take  in  your  life  ;  bat  I  feared  it  would  be  so." 

Two  days  thereafter  he  announced  to  General  Scott  his 
final  conclusion  in  these  memorable  words : 

'•ARLINGTON,  VA.,  April  20,  18G1. 

u  GENERAL  :  Since  my  interview  with  you,  on  the  18th  instant,  I 
have  felt  that  I  ought  not  to  retain  my  commission  in  the  army.  I 
therefore  tender  my  resignation,  which  I  request  you  will  recommend 


172  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

lor  acceptance.  It  would  have  been  presented  at  once  but  tor  the 
struggle  it  has  cost  me  to  separate  myself  from  a  service  to  which  I  have 
devoted  all  the  best  years  of  my  life  and  all  the  ability  I  possessed. 
During  the  whole  of  that  time — more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century — I 
have  experienced  nothing  but  kindness  from  my  superiors,  and  the  most 
cordial  friendship  from  my  comrades.  To  no  one,  General,  have  I  been 
as  much  indebted  as  to  yourself  for  uniform  kindness  and  consideration  ; 
and  it  has  always  been  my  ardent  desire  to  merit  your  approbation.  L 
shall  cany  to  the  grave  the  most  grateful  recollections  of  your  kind 
consideration,  and  your  name  and  fame  will  always  be  dear  to  me. 

Save  in  defense  of  my  native  State  I  never  desire  again  to  draw  my 
sword.  Be  pleased  to  accept  my  most  earnest  wishes  for  the  contin 
uance  of  your  happiness  and  prosperity,  and  believe  me  most  truly 
yours,  R.  E.  LEK.V 

How  General  Lee  conducted  himself  afterward,  as  a 
military  commander,  is  already  known  to  the  world. 
What  wisdom  he  displayed  subsequently  in  surrendering 
his  arrny  after  all  hopes  of  success  in  the  Confederate 
struggle  for  independence  had  become  extinct  is  equally 
well  known.  Mr.  Davis'  insane  proclamation  from  Dan 
ville  afterward,  calling  the  propriety  of  General  Lee's  sur 
render  in  question,  and  proposing  to  continue  a  contest  in 
which  even  the  most  complete  success  would  have  been 
ruin  and  degradation,  is  one  of  those  airy  bubbles  upon 
the  surface  of  the  stormy  ocean  of  the  past  which  has 
long  since  exploded,  even  by  the  force  of  its  own  ineffable 
feebleness. 

The  letter  of  General  Lee,  of  January  23,  1861,  written 
at  Fort  Mason,  Texas,  throws  a  still  stronger  light  upon 
his  painful  moral  struggle  through  which  the  great  soul 
was  now  passing.  These  are  his  impressive  words  : 

44 1  received  Everett's  '  Life  of  Washington,'  which  you  sent  me,  and 
enjoyed  its  perusal.  How  his  spirit  would  be  grieved  could  he  see  the 
wreck  of  his  mighty  labors.  I  will  not,  however,  permit  myself  to  be 
lieve  until  all  ground  for  hope  is  gone  that  the  fruit  of  his  noble  deeds 
will  be  destroyed,  and  that  his  precious  and  virtuous  example  will  so 
soon  be  forgotten  by  his  countrymen.  As  far  as  1  can  judge  by  the 
papers  we  are  between  a  state  of  anarchy  and  civil  war.  May  (Jod 
avert  both  these  evils  from  us  !  1  fear  that  mankind  for  years  will  iiol 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  173 

be  sufficiently  Christianized  to  bear  the  absence  of  restraint  and  force. 
I  see  that  four  States  have  declared  themselves  out  of  the  Union  ;  four 
more,  will  apparently  follow  their  example.  Then,  if  the  border  States 
are  brought  into  the  gulf  of  revolution,  one-half  of  the  country  will  be 
arrayed  against  the  other.  I  must  try  and  be  patient  and  await  the 
end,  for  I  can  do  nothing  to  hasten  or  retard  it." 

It  seems  to  be  manifest  that  if  Virginia  had  refused  to 
participate  in  the  secession  movement  General  Lee  would 
not  have  resigned  his  commission  in  the  United  States 
army.  Had  Virginia  remained  firm,  so  would  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  have  done,  and  perhaps 
a  State  or  two  more.  General  Lee  would  then  undoubt 
edly  have  been  forced  by  his  own  sense  of  duty  to  lead  the 
Union  army.  It  is  doubtful  whether,  under  such  circum 
stances,  the  war  would  have  lasted  a  twelvemonth.  I  hold 
it  to  be  even  probable  that  in  such  a  case  no  great  battle 
would  have  been  fought  at  all.  Had  a  short  struggle  of 
arms  occurred,  General  Lee,  after  securing  the  true  safety 
and  honor  of  all  the  States  by  maintaining  the  Federal 
Union  in  full  vigor,  on  the  restoration  of  peace,  would 
have  occupied  very  much  the  same  position  as  the  cele 
brated  Duke  of  Argyle  did  in  Scotland  in  1715,  who,  after 
overcoming  rebellion  on  Scottish  soil,  and  putting  down 
the  forces  of  the  Pretender,  had  it  in  his  power  to  save  his 
deluded  fellow-citizens  of  Scotland  from  immeasurable 
sufferings  which  might  have  otherwise  fallen  upon  them, 
and  which  their  own  irritability  was  constantly  provok 
ing.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  how  effective  such  a  man  as 
General  Lee  would  have  been,  after  defending  the  Gov 
ernment  against  armed  assailment ;  after  his  own  wisdom 
and  labor  should  have  brought  back  peace  and  safety  to 
that  very  Government,  and  to  the  whole  American  people, 
had  the  victorious  party  shown  itself,  in  some  glaring  in 
stance  afterward  unduly  oppressive  toward  the  fallen,  in 
interposing  for  the  rescue  of  those  whom  he  had  been  com 
pelled  to  chasten  in  war.  A  new  MacCallummore  might 


174  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

have  then  made  his  appearance  even  in  the  halls  of  Con 
gress,  and  have  responded  to  some  American  Hardwicke, 
almost  in  the  very  words  of  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  when  he 
said :  "  I  appeal  to  the  House — to  the  nation,  if  I  can  he 
justly  branded  with  the  infamy  of  being  a  jobber  or  a  par 
tisan.  Have  I  been  a  briber  of  votes  ?  a  buyer  of  boroughs  ? 
The  agent  of  corruption  for  any  purpose  or  on  behalf  of 
any  party  ?  Consider  my  life,  examine  my  actions  in  the 
field  and  in  the  Cabinet,  and  see  where  lies  a  blot  that  can 
attach  to  my  honor.  I  have  shown  myself  the  friend  of 
my  country — the  loyal  subject  of  my  king.  I  am  ready 
to  do  so  again  without  an  instant's  regard  to  the  powers 
or  smiles  of  a  court.  I  have  experienced  both,  and  am 
prepared  with  indifference  for  either.  I  have  given  my 
reasons  for  opposing  this  measure,  and  have  made  it  ap 
pear  that  it  is  repugnant  to  the  international  treaty  of 
union,  to  the  liberty  of  Scotland,  and  reflectively  to  that 
of  England,  to  common  justice,  to  common  sense,  and  to 
the  public  interest.  Shall  the  metropolis  of  Scotland,  the 
capital  of  an  independent  nation,  the  residence  of  a  long 
line  of  monarchs,  by  whom  that  noble  city  was  graced  and 
dignified — shall  such  a  city,  for  the  fault  of  an  obscure  and 
unknown  body  of  rioters,  be  deprived  of  its  honors  and  its 
privileges,  its  gates  and  its  guards  ?  and  shall  a  native 
Scotsman  tamely  behold  the  havoc  ?  I  glory,  my  Lords,  in 
opposing  such  unjust  rigor,  and  reckon  it  my  dearest  pride 
and  honor  to  stand  up  in  defense  of  my  native  country, 
while  thus  laid  open  to  undeserved  shame  and  unmerited 
spoliation."* 

That  General  Lee,  had  he  been  more  fortunately  situated, 
might  have  been  able  to  enact  the  noble  part  herein  depic 
tured  I  hold  to  be  certain ;  but  "  circumstance,  that  un- 


*This  speech  \vas  made  by  the  Duke  of  Argyle  in  connection  with 
the  aftair  of  the  Porteons  mob. 


CASKET    01'   REMINISCENCES.  .175 

spiritual  god  and  misdirector,"  came  forward  and  touched 
his  energies  "  with  his  crutch-like  rod  "  and  "  turned  his 
Blowing  hopes  to  dust — tlie  dust  we  all  have  trod. 


176  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XVIII. 

DUELING — MAJOR       KEMP — BERNARD     IIOOE — DOCTOR     GEORGE 

GRAHAM. 

Bella,  liorrida  bella< 
Ef  Tin/brim  mitlto  spumantcm  saiuniine  ccrno. 

These  prophetic  words  of  the  Cumjvan  sybil  might  well 
have  l)een  applied  a  century  ago  to  that  portion  of  our 
country  situated  upon  the  hanks  of  our  own  pater  fluvium, 
the  Mississippi  river,  and  its  tributary  streams  and  stream 
lets.  For  since  we  know  that  bellum  is  only  a  contraction 
of  the  old  Latin  word  ducllum,  signifying  battle — (in  refer 
ence  to  which  Cicero  says:  "Antiqui  nomina  contrahcbant, 
(luocssentaptiora,  nam  utduellum  est  helium") — the  prevalence 
of  duels,  or  affairs  of  honor,  as  they  have  been  called,  in 
our  Western  and  Southern  regions,  might  be  in  this  sense 
sufficiently  well  expressed  by  words  signifying  the  con 
tinued  raging  of  bloody  and  ghastly  wars  of  any  kind. 

But,  without  dwelling  upon  this  point  of  scholastic 
criticism,  let  me  remind  the  gentle  reader,  whether  learned 
or  unlearned,  that  the  dueling-field  was  far  more  resorted 
to  for  the  settlement  of  personal  disputes  forty  years  ago 
in  every  part  of  our  much  favored  land  than  it  is  at  the 
present  time,  and  that  scenes  of  mortal  conflict,  brought 
on  not  seldom  for  little  or  no  reasonable  cause,  were  far 
more  numerous  in  our  Southern  and  Western  States  and 
Territories  than  in  the  older  and  more  settled  common 
wealths,  in  which  our  fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers 
quietly  and  piously  dwelt ;  though  it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  any  portion  of  our  wide-spread  domain  has  been  at 
all  times  entirely  exempt  from  this  abominable  practice. 
Eminent  public  statesmen  among  the  Romans,  from  the 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  177 

earliest  period  of  the  annals  of  their  great  republic,  indulged 
often  in  fierce  and  insulting  controversy,  sometimes  end 
ing  in  scenes  of  physical  conflict,  but  nothing  like  a  regu 
lar  duel,  such  as  known  in  our  time,  was  ever  thought  of 
by  the  parties   disputant.       Demosthenes   and    Eschines 
railed  at  each  other  for  hours  and  days  together,  in  lan 
guage  far  more  caustic    and  irritating  than  any  modern 
speaker  has  shown  himself  to  be  master  of,  but  when  this 
mutual  objurgation  was  over  no  one  apprehended  that  a 
more  deadly  conflict  would    thereafter  bring  about  the 
needless  destruction  of  human   life.     For  some  centuries 
past,  though,  in  most  of  our  Christianly  civilized  coun 
tries,  dueling  has  been  more  or  less  in  vogue,  and  is  gen 
erally  spoken  of  in  them  all  as  a  relic  of  the  days  of  chiv 
alry,  as,  indeed,  it  doubtless   is.     Within   a  century  past 
Fox  and  Pitt  were  both  known  to  draw  trigger ;  Sheri 
dan  fought  one  of  the  most  desperate  duels  ever  described 
—before,  however,  he  attained  a  seat  in  Parliament ;  Cur- 
ran  and  Flood,  the  great  Irish  orators,  gave  noted  proof 
that  they  did  not  at  all  disapprove  of  this  unreasonable 
mode  of  settling  personal  misunderstandings.     O'Connell 
killed  his  man  ;  after  which,  though  averse  to  the  further 
shedding  of  blood  with  his  own  hands,  in  a  mode  alike 
unsanctioned  by  the  lawrs  of  God  and  man,  he  is  under 
stood  not  to  have  blamed  his  son  very  harshly  for  taking 
it  upon  himself  to  imitate  his  own  early  example.     Per 
haps  the  killing  of  Alexander  Hamilton  by  Aaron  Burr 
awakened  the  first  decidedly  retroactive  feeling  in  this 
country  against  the  practice  of  dueling ;  though  it  is  cer 
tain  that  many  instances  have  since  occurred  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  New  York  and  Washington  city,  and  among 
men  of  great  and  merited  distinction,  too,  showing  that 
public  sentiment  is  not  even  yet  so  firmly  established  in 
opposition  to  a  species  of  warfare  so  unphilosophical  and 

12R 


178  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

so  savage,  as  all  'humane  and  enlightened  minds  would 
wish  it  to  be. 

In  the  days  of  my  early  boyhood  a  duel  occurred  within 
some  twenty-five  or  thirty  miles  of  the  city  of  Washing 
ton,  which  must  have  produced  at  the  time  a  very 
deep  impression  upon  public  sentiment  throughout  Vir 
ginia,  for  the  deplorable  result  of  this  memorable  conflict 
of  arms  is  said  to  have  been  the  principal  cause  of  the 
excellent  anti-dueling  act  to  be  found  in  the  statute-book 
of  this  grave  and  dignified  Commonwealth,  which  exam 
ple  of  wise  and  wholesome  legislation  is  well  known  to 
have  been  since  very  extensively  imitated  elsewhere.  The 
aii'air  to  which  I  have  just  made  special  reference  was  the 
famous  duel  between  Kemp  and  Hooe,  of  Prince  William 
county.  Ilooe  was  a  man  of  fine  intellect,  of  highly  re 
spectable  attainments,  and  of  great  personal  popularity. 
I  well  recollect  seeing  him  repeatedly  at  my  father's 
house,  and  of  hearing  him  spoken  of  in  terms  of  the  warm 
est  commendation.  He  was  a  relative  of  my  own,  and 
was  much  loved  and  honored  by  a  large  and  influential 
family  connection.  Bernard  Hooe  was  a  zealous  Federal 
ist,  and  had  once  or  twice  represented  the  county  of 
Prince  William  in  the  State  Legislature,  in  which  body 
he  was  a  great  favorite.  Mr.  Kemp  was  a  Democrat,  and 
the  quarrel  between  these  gentlemen  was  almost  strictly 
political.  Kemp  shot  down  his  antagonist,  who  died  im 
mediately,  leaving  behind  him  a  widow  and  many  chil 
dren,  all  of  whom  were  known  to  me  familiarly.  Many 
a  time  have  I  participated  in  the  reproduction  of  this 
duel,  as  one  of  a  band  of  youthful  dramatis  persona*,  in  the 
parlor  of  my  own  home,  with  certain  of  my  equals  in  age, 
and  in  the  absence  of  all  grown  persons;  and  never  did  I 
go  through  this  melancholy  scene  without  fresh  emotions 
of  distress  and  chagrin. 

F  have  seen  the  victor  in  this  contest  more  than  once. 
He  was  considerably  the  junior  ot   Hooe,  was  also  a  man 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  179 

of  fine  presence,  and  bore  the  reputation  of  .being  a  warm 
hearted,  brave,  enterprising,  and  intelligent  young  man. 
He  is  described  to  me  to  have  been  a  deputy  sheriff  in  the 
county  of  Prince  William  for  some  years,  and  to  have  ac 
quired  in  that  office  much  popularity. 

There  was  in  this  county  at  that  time  a  young  lady  of 
singular  beauty  and  accomplishments,  of  the  name  of 
Graham.  Her  education  had  been  well  attended  to,  and 
all  who  knew  her  spoke  of  her  temper  and  manners  in 
lano-uao-e  of  the  warmest  commendation.  She  was  the 

£">  O 

daughter  of  Dr.  George  Graham,  a  gentleman  of  rare  ac 
complishments  and  hi<>'h  reputation  in  the  medical  pro 
fession.  He  had  been  educated  at  Edinburgh,  being  him 
self  a  native  of  Scotland,  and  was  reported  to  be  of  good 
birth  and  affiliations  in  his  native  land.  This  gentleman 
was  the  third  husband  of  my  venerated  grandmother,  and 
often  have  I  sat  in  his  lap  in  childhood  and  been  the 
grateful  recipient  of  his  more  than  fatherly  attentions. 
After  the  decease  of  my  grandmother,  Dr.  Graham  mar 
ried  a  Miss  Ilooe,  sister  to  the  Bernard  Hooe  whom  I 
have  already  mentioned  as  having  lost  his  life  on  the  field 
of  honor. 

When  in  my  twelfth  year,  I  heard  the  Episcopal  funeral 
service  read  by  my  father  (there  being  no  minister  pres 
ent)  over  the  remains  of  Dr.  Graham  on  one  of  the  coldest 
winter  days  I  ever  experienced.  The  grave  in  which  this 
excellent  man  lies  interred  is  distant  from  the  celebrated 
Bull  Run  battle-field  some  two  or  three  miles  only.  A 
cannon  fired  by  the  Federal  army  might  have  transported 
the  ball  with  which  it  was  charged  to  the  very  margin  of 
that  same  grave  ;  which  fact  I  mention  particularly  for 
a  reason  which  will  presently  be  obvious. 

Kemp  was  a  warm  admirer  of  Miss  Graham,  and  made 
proposals  of  marriage  to  her.  The  young  lady  was  said 
to  have  been  much  attached  to  him,  and  to  have  expressed 
her  willingness  to  become  his  wife.  Friends  interfered 


180  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

who  broke  off  the  marriage.  Miss  Graham  was  afterward 
married  to  Mr.  Bird,  an  old  bachelor,  and  about  the 
wealthiest  man  in  Prince  William  county.  He  died  in 
less  than  a  year,  and,  as  soon  as  decency  would  allow, 
Kemp  renewed  his  matrimonial  proposals  to  his  former 
mistress,  and  was  accepted.  Bird  had  devised  to  his 
young  wife  the  whole  of  his  estate. 

After  Kemp's  marriage  with  Mrs.  Bird  he  disposed  of 
her  property,  and  removed  to  the  far  Southwest.  He  lo 
cated  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  city  of  Natchez,  where 
he  became  a  wealthy  and  prosperous  cotton-planter. 
When  General  Jackson  marched  to  the  defense  of  New 
Orleans  he  passed  through  the  State  of  Mississippi.  Here 
General  (then  Colonel)  Hinds  joined  him,  bringing  to  his 
aid  that  celebrated  dragoon  regiment  which  distinguished 
itself  so  much  in  the  memorable  battle  which  saved  "the 
booty  and  beauty  "  of  New  Orleans  from  the  cruel  hands 
of  the  spoiler.  Kemp  commanded  one  of  the  finest  com 
panies  in  Hinds'  regiment,  and  participated  in  all  the 
glory  of  his  illustrious  commander,  of  whom  General 
Jackson  said  in  his  famous  report  of  the  battle  that  he 
rode  fearlessly  between  the  two  opposing  hosts  just  before 
the  moment  of  conflict,  "  the  pride  of  one  army  and  the 
terror  of  the  other."  Kemp  returned  home  and  lived 
only  for  a  few  years,  leaving  a  number  of  children. 
Among  the  daughters  who  sprang  from  him  was  a  Mrs. 
Howcll,  of  whom,  I  am  told,  Mrs.  Jefferson  Davis  is  the 
daughter.  If  this  be  true,  (and  others  perhaps  know  more 
of  the  facts  now  related  than  I  could  possibly  do,)  why, 
then,  when  Jefferson  Davis  rode  over  the  Bull  Run  bat 
tle-field,  on  the  day  after  this  famous  conflict  of  arms,  he 
was,  perhaps  without  being  at  all  conscious  of  the  fact, 
within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  that  sequestered  forest 
grave  where,  thirty  years  before,  i  had  seen  the  mortal 
remains  of  his  wife's  great  grandfather  solemnly  depos 
ited  1 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  181 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XIX. 

DUELS — S.  S.  PRENTISS — MASON  AND  M'CARTY BARRON  AND 

DECATUR — M'DUFFEE  AND  CUMMINS — CLAY  AND  RANDOLPH 

— PETTUS  AND    BIDDLE — WISE    AND    COKE — BENTON  AND  LU 
CAS. 

Having  yielded  to  the  request  of  several  respected 
friends  who  desired  that  I  should  give  to  the  public  some 
account  of  the  duels  in  which  I  have  heretofore  been  a 
[tarty,  or  which  were  transacted  under  my  own  personal 
observation,  I  deem  it  expedient  to  declare  in  advance  my 
own  decided  disapproval  of  the  practice  of  settling  individ 
ual  disputes  upon  the  field  of  honor,  as  it  has  been  so  long 
grossly  misnamed.  There  never  was  a  time  when  1 
held  any  other  sentiments  than  those  I  now  utter,  and  did 
I  think  that  the  statement  of  what  I  bear  in  memory 
touching  matters  of  this  kind  would  tend  in  the  least  de 
gree  to  impart  dignity  and  popularity  to  this  enormous 
social  evil  nothing  could  tempt  me  to  utter  even  a  word 
or  a  syllable  designed  to  preserve  what  I  have  seen  or  ex 
perienced  in  former  days  in  connection  with  this  most  re 
volting  subject. 

So  far  as  dueling  is  concerned  I  occupy  precisely  the 
situation  which  I  did  in  reference  to  the  late  unhappy 
civil  war.  Xo  one,  I  am  sure,  can  be  mentioned  who  more 
uniformly  condemned  the  absurd  and  dangerous  principle 
of  secession,  in  support  of  which  that  war  was  commenced, 
than  myself.  No  man  ever  deplored  more  deeply  than  I 
did  the  prevalence  of  sectional  prejudices  in  two  opposite 
portions  of  the  Union,  menacing,  almost  for  a  half  cen 
tury,  just  such  a  fearful  and  disastrous  combustion  as  af 
terward  ensued.  Xo  one  ever  struggled  harder  than  I  did 


182  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

to  prevent  that  fatal  internecine  war  through  which  wo 
have  been  doomed  to  pass.  No  man  was  ever  better  satis 
fied  than  I  have  been  tor  nearly  fifty  years  that  any 
attempt  to  disrupt  this  Union  of  States  and  divide  it  into 
separate  republics,  even  if  successful,  would  be  ruinous  to 
all  engaged  therein,  opening  the  way,  as  it  would  cer 
tainly  do,  to  continued  border  wars,  standing  armies  for 
the  purpose  of  guarding  against  ever-impending  attacks 
from  without,  and  the  ultimate  establishment  of  a  mon 
archical  despotism  in  each  one  of  the  new-formed  confeder 
acies.  No  individual  will  ever  be  found  who  had  clearer 
convictions  than  I  have  always  entertained  of  the  inevita 
bly  demoralizing  influence  of  all  wars,  and  especially  of 
those  occurring  between  people  of  the  same  derivation, 
language,  and  civil  histoiy.  And  yet  was  I  drawn  into 
that  very  war  which  I  had  so  long  dreaded  and  so  often 
predicted.  My  nature  was  too  weak  to  resist  the  influ 
ences  which  were  brought  to  bear  upon  me.  When  the 
blood  of  my  kindred  began  to  stream  upon  my  natal  soil  ; 
when  all  with  whom  I  stood  connected,  either  by  tics  of 
consanguinity  or  of  affinity,  had  taken  sides  in  the  con 
flict ;  when  my  beloved  native  State,  the  venerated  mother 
of  many  States,  and  the  prolific  genitrix  of  so  many  men 
of  immortal  renown,  broke  loose  from  her  moorings  and 
unfurled  the  Confederate  banner  almost  in  view  of  the 
National  Capitol,  my  once  boasted  firmness  gave  way.  I 
became  an  earnest  champion  of  resistance.  I  aided  in 
arming  my  gallant  young  countrymen  of  the  South 
against  the  wisest,  noblest,  freest  Government  that  the 
wit  of  man  has  ever  put  in  action.  I  did  this  without  a 
sober  and  scrutinizing  examination  of  all  the  real  circum 
stances  then  in  existence.  I  joined  in  making  causeless 
and  unprovoked  war;  war, too,  under  an  Executive  Chief 
whose  incompetency  I  had  long  known  ;  the  selfishness  of 
whose  nature  was  as  familiar  to  niy  mind  as  his  wizard 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  183 

physiognomy  was  to  ray  vision  ;  whose  lawless  aspira 
tions  to  despotic  power  I  had  for  many  years  more  than 
suspected;  and  whose  overweening  prejudices  and  par 
tialities  I  could  not  doubt  would  be  every  moment  dis 
playing  themselves  so  long  as  he  could  anywhere  find  a 
few  blind  servitors  willing  to  obey  his  behests  and  aid  him 
in  the  gratification  of  his  enormous  and  insatiable  am 
bition.  Yes,  I  entered  into  that  war  blindly  and  madly, 
with  little  to  give  me  hope  as  to  the  future  except  the 
known  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  Southern  people  and 
the  heroic  valor  of  that  chivalrous  and  self-devoting  sol- 

D 

diery  whose  merits  and  whose  sufferings  in  behalf  of  a 
cause  in  which  they  had  so  impulsively  entered  will  stand 
enrolled  in  ever-living  characters  upon  the  pages  of  the 
just-minded  and  philosophic  historians  whom  future 
generations  shall  supply. 

If  I  committed  the  great  error  of  my  life  in  joining  the 
ranks  of  insurrectionary  hostility  against  that  paternal 
government  whose  magnanimity  toward  the  conquered  is 
at  this  instant  calling  forth  plaudits  from  the  whole  civil 
ized  world,  much  do  I  rejoice  that  it  is  yet  in  my  power 
to  make  some  little  atonement  for  my  past  dereliction  by 
[i  free  and  full  confession  thereof,  and  by  doing  all  that  is 
now  possible  for  me  to  do  in  binding  up  the  yet  bleeding 
wounds  of  civil  conflict  ;  in  guarding  the  unwary  against 
future  aberrations  from  civil  rectitude,  and  especially  in 
calming  the  rage  of  ever-fermenting  sectionalism  ;  in  sup 
pressing  extreme  party  zeal  wheresoever  it  may  be  found, 
and  in  persuading  good  men  everywhere  to  join  as  com 
patriots  and  brethren  in  upholding  our  beneficently 
framed,  and  yet  more  beneficently  amended  organic  system, 
against  all  who  may  essay  to  overturn  it  by  open  violence, 
or  to  sap  its  foundations  by  the  covert  and  insidious  en 
croachments  of  a  spoils-loving  and  principle-renouncing 
partisanship. 


184  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

So,  as  I  have  said  already,  it  is  with  me  also  in  regard 
to  dueling.  I  have  at  one  time,  and  more  than  once,  taken 
part  in  scenes  enacted  upon  what  men  have  chosen  to  call 
the  field  of  honor,  even  when,  as  I  have  already  declared, 
I  utterly  condemned  this  absurd  and  barbarous  mode  of 
settling  individual  disputes.  I  found  a  vicious  state  of 
public  sentiment  existing  in  the  Southwest  when  I  went 
thither  to  reside  in  1825,  and  I  weakly  and  criminally 
yielded  to  it  in  opposition  to  my  own  inward  convictions 
of  right  and  propriety.  I  sorely  regret  all  my  sins  in  this 
regard,  and  offer  now  to  make  all  the  atonement  in  my 
power  by  asking  forgiveness  of  a  high-minded  and  gene 
rous  public. 

It  has  long  been  with  me  a  subject  of  warm  sclf-grat il 
lation  that  I  have  never  yet  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  take 
away  human  life  upon  occasions  of  this  kind,  for  had  I 
done  so,  even  had  the  whole  world  joined  in  forgiving  me, 
never  should  I  have  forgiven  myself. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  surprising  delusion  that 
has  ever  entered  the  mind  of  a  sane  human  creature  that 
in  a  land  of  government  and  laws  any  man,  or  set  of  men, 
could  feel  justified  in  openly  violating  the  prohibitory  be 
hests  of  those  laws,  and  in  setting  the  principles  of  social 
order  at  defiance.  Surely  it  is  only  in  the  firm  and  steady 
maintenance  of  law  that  any  man's  life  is  safe,  or  any 
man's  rights  of  property.  It  is  mainly  by  the  existence 
of  laws,  and  of  just  and  enlightened  functionaries  to  ad 
minister  them,  that  civilized  men  are  distinguishable  from 
barbarians  and  savages.  A  country  that  boasts  of  having 
laws,  and  yet  is  compelled  to  confess  its  inability  to  en 
force  them,  is  not  at  all  entitled  to  the  respect  of  the 
refined  and  cultivated  portion  of  our  race;  and  a  govern 
ment  which  is  not  both  able  and  willing  to  see  right 
maintained  and  justice  firmly  administered,  in  opposition 
to  all  the  efforts  of  violent  and  iniquitous  persons  any- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  185 

where  to  perpetuate  indi  vidual  wrong  or  obstruct  the 
peaceful  progress  of  society,  deserves  all  the  reproaches 
which  are  reported  to  have  burst  from  the  lips  of  the  Scy 
thian  philosopher,  Anacharsis,  in  his  memorable  conversa 
tion  with  the  great  law-giver,  Solon,  touching  the  value 
of  the  legal  code  which  he  had  just  prepared  for  the  peo 
ple  of  Athens,  when  he  said:  "Your  laws  are  strong 
enough  to  entangle  feeble  and  innocuous  flies,  but  the 
hornets  and  wasps  of  your  community  will  break  through 
them  at  pleasure." 

I  am  happy  to  have  it  in  my  power  to  declare  that  the 
anti-dueling  law  of  Virginia,  already  referred  to,  and 
others  passed  elsewhere  in  its  likeness,  had  a  very  reforma 
tory  influence  wherever  they  were  duly  enforced.  But  in 
a  few  years  after  its  enactment  the  war  of  three  years  with 
Great  Britain  re-engendered  elements  of  lawlessness,  which 
exhibited  their  potency  for  mischief  in  various  forms  ;  and 
the  dignity  unfortunately  imparted  to  this  unseemly  and 
unchristian  practice  by  various  men  of  note  in  different 
parts  of  the  Republic  began  soon  to  be  felt  by  society  in  a 
very  grievous  manner.  I  well  remember  how  much  of 
public  attention,  notunmingled  with  admiration  also,  was 
called  forth  by  certain  duels  fought  between  the  years 
1815  and  1810.  I  will  here  specify  a  few  of  them  only— 
those  between  Mason  and  McCarty,  Decatur  and  Barren, 
Coffee  and  Jesse  Benton,  Houston  and  White,  Clay  and 
Randolph,  McDuffee  and  Cummins,  Benton  and  Lucas, 
Pettus  and  Biddle,  Wise  and  Coke,  &c.  The  scenes  alluded 
to,  described  in  all  the  newspapers  of  the  time,  had  called 
into  existence  a  code  of  social  morals  most  deplorable  in 
deed,  and  influences  which  no  young  man  of  unestablished 
reputation  for  personal  courage  could  be  expected  to  resist 
without  much  difficulty.  From  the  time  of  my  own  set 
tlement  in  Tuscumbia,  Alabama,  in  the  autumn  of  1825, 
for  at  least  twenty -five  years  thereafter,  I  really  do  not 
remember  to  have  heard  any  one  in  the  section  of  country 


186  CASKET    OF    RKM1N1SCKNCKS. 

where  I  resided  call  in  question  the  propriety  of  dueling, 
and  so  imperious  and  exacting  had  public  sentiment  be 
come  in  relation  to  this  matter  that  no  individual,  not  in 
close  connection  with  some  Christian  denomination,  could 
have  refused  a  summons  to  the  field  of  honor  without  he- 
ing  consigned  to  permanent  discredit  and  coldly  shut  out 
from  all  intercourse  with  gentlemen.  To  show  hwo 
ridiculously  far  this  evil  state  of  things  had  gone,  I  will 
here  mention  a  fact  which  will,  perhaps,  a  little  startle 
some  who  have  never  heard  of  it  before.  A  year  or  two 
previous  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  Mexican  war  (the  pre 
cise  date  not  now  recollected)  a  large  public  meeting  was 
held  in  the  city  of  Vicksburg,  Miss.,  in  which  the  cele 
brated  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  elder  brother,  Joseph,  took 
a  very  active  and  prominent  part ;  at  which  meeting 
resolutions  were  deliberately  adopted  upholding  the  prac 
tice  of  dueling,  and  recommending  this  unpeaceful  mode 
of  settling  disputes  among  men  of  honor  in  most  emphatic 
language.  About  this  period  duels  were  multiplying 
along  the  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  and  especially  in  the 
vicinage  where  these  resolutions  were  adopted,  with  most 
fearful  rapidity ;  one  of  the  political  newspapers  there 
lost,  I  think,  as  many  as  three  editors  at  the  pistol's 
mouth,  and  there  were  numerous  victims  of  a  like  kind 
in  that  neighborhood — victims  of  a  species  of  madness 
positively  worse  than  that  which  is  known  to  prey  upon 
the  canine  genus. 

It  might  well  occasion  astonishment  that  men  should 
be  found  anywhere  who  would  thus  openly  and  arrogantly 
attempt  to  incite  the  young  and  mercurial  members  of 
the  community  to  this  unblushing  and  audacious  disre 
gard  of  law  and  sound  morality  ;  but  the  fact  which  I 
have  just  stated  is  just  as  true  as  it  is  that  the  States- 
rights-secession-Democratic  party  of  the  State  of  Missis 
sippi  in  the  year  1853  adopted  a  legislative  resolution 
submitting  to  a  test  vote  among  the  people  of  that  State, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  187 

at  the  then  approaching  general  election,  the  propriety  of 
taxing  themselves  to  pay  the  accruing  interest  on  the 
bonds  of  the  Planters'  Bank,  the  validity  of  which  bonds 
no  man  has  ever  presumed  to  dispute  ;  and  that  the  politi 
cal  party,  routed  in  the  previous  election, when  Mr.  Davis 
had  himself  been  ingloriously  defeated,  was  able,  by  this 
notable  expedient,  to  secure  its  own  return  to  power, 
through  the  procurement  of  popular  sanction  for  so  base 
and  unpardonable  a  fraud.  In  point  of  fact,  I  resigned 
the  office  of  Governor  thereafter,  expressly  upon  the 
ground  that  I  could  not  participate,  in  the  least  degree,  in 
that  unprecedented  act  of  pertidy.  Some  will  doubtless 
be  surprised  to  learn  that  Jefferson  Davis  did  himself  per 
sonally  vote  in  the  city  of  Natchez,  in  presence  of  wit 
nesses,  in  that  election,  and  in  a  very  ostentatious  manner, 
too,  against  the  taxation  proposed.  I  mention  this  case 
now,  in  this  incidental  way,  in  order  to  illustrate  still 
more  fully,  if  I  can,  the  policy,  in  a  community  of  laws,  of 
always  adhering  to  the  requisitions  of  the  law  ;  and,  in  a 
community  professing  to  be  humane  and  civilized,  of  giving 
no  public  countenance  on  any  occasion  to  that  which  im 
plies  moral  obliquity  or  the  spirit  of  lawlessness. 

As  to  my  own  personal  example  in  the  matter  of  duel 
ing  I  have  only  to  say,  in  addition  to  what  I  have  said 
already,  that  I  had  the  misfortune  twice  to  be  challenged 
to  the  field  of  honor  ;  in  two  other  instances  I  was  foolish 
enough  to  be  the  challenging  party.  On  the  first  occasion, 
in  1828,  I  was  shot  in  the  left  shoulder  by  one  of  the  cele 
brated  dueling  pistols  of  General  Jackson,  borrowed  by 
my  antagonist  from  the  venerable  hero  of  the  Hermitage  ; 
wiio,  by  the  by,  had  certainly  no  hand  in  instigating  this 
duel,  and  who  lived  and  died  my  friend — bestowing  upon 
me  an  important  office  almost  in  the  last  days  of  his  ever- 
glorious  administration.  The  last  time  I  fought  was  in 
1837,  when,  after  five  shots  having  been  exchanged,  the 
affair  terminated  without  the  least  personal  injury  to  my- 


188  CASKET    OK    REMINISCENCES. 

self,  my  adversary  having  been  disabled  by  my  fifth  shot, 
which  had  entered  his  hip. 

In  the  winter  of  1832-'83  I  had  a  personal  dispute  at 
the  bar  with  the  famous  8.  8.  Prentiss,  during  the  trial  of 
a  capital  case  of  much  importance.  His  language,  though 
sufficiently  retaliated  by  me  at  the  time,  induced  me  to 
send  him  a  challenge,  which  I  ought  never  to  have  thought 
of  doing.  He  promptly  accepted,  proved  a  far  better  shot 
than  myself,  and  wounded  me  very  painfully  in  the  left 
shoulder.  We  adjusted  our  dispute  before  we  left  the 
ground.  An  indiscreet  friend  or  two  of  his  spoke  disparag 
ingly  of  my  conduct  on  the  occasion.  I  was  highly  exas 
perated,  and  wrote  him  a  note  demanding  whether  he  had 
given  his  sanction  to  this  act  of  injustice.  Lie  at  once 
denied  doing  so.  I  published  the  correspondence.  He 
placed  such  an  interpretation  upon  my  letter  to  him  as 
gave  him  much  offense.  He  proposed  reopening  the  fight, 
which  we  did  on  exceedingly  desperate  terms.  He 
shot  me  down,  giving  me  a  very  dangerous  wound. 
In  three  months  we  were  good  friends,  and  lived  in  the 
greatest  amity  and  harmony  up  to  the  period  of  hi?  death, 
which  happened  in  1849.  Of  this  remarkable  man,  and 
of  Alexander  Iv.  McClung,  who  waited  on  me  to  the  field 
when  I  had  my  second  duel  with  Mr.  Prentiss,  I  shall 
have  something  special  to  say  hereafter  ;  for  these  were, 
upon  the  whole,  among  the  most  remarkable  men  I  have 
every  known.  In  native  intellect  I  am  satisfied  that 
neither  has  had  a  superior  in  the  Southwestern  section  of 
the  Union.  Both  were  brave,  affectionate,  magnanimous, 
and  patriotic.  I  exceedingly  doubt  whether  the  State  of 
Mississippi  will  ever  have  in  her  midst  men  of  loftier 
bearing,  and  of  greater  intellectual  powers  than  those 
friends  of  by-gone  years  to  whom  I  have  thus  briefly 
alluded.  I  haveno  space  here  to  speak  of  either  of  them 
as  I  feel  them  both  to  deserve  at  my  hands,  but  shall  take 
pride  in  doing  so  hereafter. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  189 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XX. 

S.  S.   PRENTISS — RETURN    J.  MEIGS — MR.  DAVIS — MONTGOMERY 
WHITE  SULPHUR  SPRINGS. 

Tn  the  year  1868  I  was  traveling  on  the  railroad  which 
connects  Nashville  with  Chattanooga,  when  I  was  intro 
duced  to  a  gentleman  whom  I  had  never  seen  before.  Hav 
ing  for  many  years  heard  him  spoken  of  as  a  jurist  of  pro 
found  learning,  a  ripe  and  accurate  scholar,  a  public- 
spirited  and  patriotic  man,  and  one  renowned  for  all  the 
virtues  which  adorn  social  and  domestic  life,  I  could  not. 
but  regard  it  as  an  instance  of  personal  good  fortune  thus 
to  be  allowed  to  form  his  acquaintance.  Having  much 
curiosity  about  this  personage,  I  sought  to  draw  him  into 
familiar  converse.  I  found  him  polite  and  affable;  but  he 
was  evidently  at  the  time  in  low  spirits,  and  there  was 
something  in  his  tone  and  aspect  that  made  the  impression 
upon  my  mind  that  he  had  recently  been  the  subject  of 
some  serious  misfortune,  the  remembrance  of  which  was 
then  sorrowfully  preying  upon  his  sensibilities.  He  left  the 
car  in  which  we  were  riding  at  someway-side  station,  and 
when  we  were  once  more  in  motion,  I  learned  on  inquiry 
that  this  gentleman  had  a  few  days  before  lost  an  amia 
ble  and  accomplished  wife,  whom  he  had  loved  with  a  de 
votion  almost  romantic,  and  that  his  many  friends  were 
besdnnmff  to  fear  that  his  former  cheerfulness  and  anima- 

O  O 

tion  would  never  more  return  to  liim. 

The  individual  to  whom  I  have  been  referring  is  now  a 
resident  of  Washington  city,  and  is  the  incumbent  of  an 
office,  the  duties  of  which  all  admit  he  is  discharging  with 
singular  fidelity  and  credit.  I  will  now  mention  his  name;  it 


190  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

is  Return  J.  Meigs,  a  man  who  is  at  this  moment  greatly  re. 
spected  and  loved  l>y  all  intelligent  and  patriotic  citizens 
of  Tennessee  on  either  side  of  the  Cumberland  mountain. 
He  was  concerned  for  nearly  thirty  years  in  the  manage 
ment  of  as  large  a  number  of  difficult  and  important 
causes  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Tennessee,  and  before  the 
subordinate  judicial  tribunals  of  the  State,  as  any  other 
individual  that  can  be  mentioned.  He  is  the  author  of  a 
voluminous  digest  of  the  judicial  decisions  of  the  State, 
which  I  have  long  thought  by  far  the  best  arranged  and 
most  skillfully  prepared  book  of  the  kind  I  have  ever  ex 
amined  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  lie  is  one  of  the 
compilers  of  the  "Code  of  Tennessee,"  which  will  favorably 
compare  with  any  other  municipal  code  I  have  yet  seen. 
Tennessee  is  more  indebted  to  this  learned  and  accom. 
plished  person  for  that  choice  selection  of  books  to  be 
found  in  her  valuable  State  library  than  to  all  other  persons 
besides,  whether  living  or  dead  There  are  but  few  of  the 
languages  ever  heretofore  spoken  among  civilized  men 
witli  which  Mr.  Meigs  is  not  more  or  less  acquainted. 

In  the  Latin  and  Greek  classics  he  has  been  asserted 
to  be  thoroughly  versed  by  far  more  competent  judges 
than  I  could  justly  claim  to  be  considered.  He  has 
given  as  much  attention  to  what  is  now  known  as  com 
parative  philology  as  any  man  I  have  yet  met.  There  is 
no  branch  of  human  knowledge  which  is  altogether  terra, 
incognita  to  his  liberal  and  scrutinizing  mind.  He  has 
ever  manifested  a  deep  and  peculiar  interest  in  the  general 
spread  of  education,  and  in  all  things  connected  with  re 
form  and  improvement  in  the  system  of  teaching. 

I  often  met  Mr.  Meigs  in  social  intercourse  in  Xashville 
before  he  left  that  city,  and  now  look  back  to  the  moments 
then  spent  in  converse  with  him  as  among  the  most  pleas 
ant  and  instructive  of  my  whole  life.  Our  occasional  en 
counters  in  the  room  of  our  State  library  (shall  I  confess  it?) 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  191 

on  the  long  and  otherwise  almost  unoccupied  Sabbath 
days,  I  am  sure  I  shall  never  cease  to  remember,  both  with 
gratification  and  thankfulness,  so  long  as  I  shall  continue 
to  live. 

Mr.  Meigs  practiced  law  for  many  years  in  Athens,  East 
Tennessee,  and  afterward  removed  to  Nashville,  where  he 
ran  as  brilliant,  as  useful,  and  as  inoffensive  a  career  as  any 
man  has  ever  done  in  any  age  or  country.  Here  he  re 
mained  until  the  terrible  excitements  which  marked  the 
tirst  year  of  the  late  ever-to-be-lamented  civil  war  induced 
him  to  dispose  of  his  possessions  in  Nashville  and  remove 
elsewhere.  It  is,  indeed,  distressful  to  reflect  that  such  a 
man  as  this  should  have  been  compelled,  by  such  causes  as 
I  have  alluded  to,  to  leave  the  home  to  which  he  was  so 
devotedly  attached,  and  to  break  asunder  so  abruptly  al] 
the  social  ties  of  a  whole  lifetime;  but  so  it  was.  Mr. 
Meigs  was  a  firm  and  inflexible  Union  man.  He  mortally 
detested  the  secession  dogma,  and  had  but  little  respect 
either  for  the  understandings  or  the  hearts  of  its  noisy  and 
mischievous  advocates.  He  sometimes  expressed  his  views 
in  regard  to  these  matters  in  the  frank  and  manly  lan 
guage  which  he  had  ever  been  accustomed  to  use  among 
his  friends  and  associates,  and  he  occasionally  warned 
some  (who  I  know  deeply  to  regret  now  not  having  heeded 
his  sage  monitions)  of  the  dangers  and  sufferings  to  which 
they  were  about  to  expose  themselves  and  their  country. 

But  never  for  a  moment  did  he  descend  to  the  use  of 
coarse  or  scurrilous  language;  of  which,  indeed,  he  was 
wholly  incapable.  I  have  always  been  of  opinion  that 
nine-tenths  of  our  Nashville  population  would  have  fought, 
if  necessary,  in  defense  o'f  this  excellent  man's  life  orperson; 
but  there  were  doubtless  at  the  time  in  that  city,  as  is  so 
apt  to  be  the  case  in  commercial  places  of  this  description,  a 
few  noisy  zealots,  hanging  loosely  on  the  skirts  of  society, 
and  ambitious  of  acquiring  a  sort  of  vulgar  notoriety,  who 


192  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES* 

were  ready  to  make  themselves  acceptable  in  certain 
quarters  by  doing  such  a  .personage  as  this  some  violence. 
I  certainly  never  knew  that  he  had  reason  to  consider  him 
self  in  danger  until  Mr.  Meigs  had  ceased  to  be  a  citizen  of 
Nashville.  When  he  took  his  leave  of  Tennessee  he  left  no 
equal  behind  him,  either  in  scholarship  or  general  attain 
ment.  The  only  man  who  indeed  could  be  compared  to 
him  in  the  city  of  Nashville  was  the  venerable  Francis  B. 
Fogg,  who  now,  almost  an  octogenarian,  is  as  genia!  and 
kindly  as  he  could  have  been  fifty  years  ago,  and  has  at 
this  time  no  rival  in  the  place  of  his  residence  in  deep  legal 
research,  scholarly  accomplishments,  and  in  that  cairn  and 
philosophic  dignity  of  aspect  and  demeanor — blended- 
with  a  uniform  graciousness  of  temper  and  a  constantly 
overflowing  benevolence,  which  have  justly  rendered  him 
an  object  of  universal  esteem  and  veneration. 

I  have  been  of  opinion  for  several  wreeks  past  that  these 
Reminiscences  would  not  be  complete  without  some  special 
notice  of  the  honored  individual  of  whom  I  have  said  so 
much  on  this  occasion,  but  I  did  not  know  exactly  how  I 
should  manage  to  introduce  him  to  the  notice  of  my 
readers.  This  difficulty  was  removed  this  morning  by  the 
unexpected  reception  of  a  note  from  Mr.  Meigs,  which  I 
now  take  the  liberty  of  publishing,  and  even  without 
asking  his  consent  thereto.  To  the  letter  was  prefixed  a 
printed  slip,  which,  on  examining  it,  I  found  to  be  a  short 
extract  from  one  of  my  own  former  reminiscences.  I  here 
insert  the  printed  slip,  with  Mr.  Meigs'  communication, 
precisely  in  the  form  in  which  they  have  just  reached  my 
hands. 

"  It  i*  gratifying  to  me  to  remember  that"  I  once  voted  for  S.  S.  Pren- 
tiss  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  Congress,  against  the  regularly  nomi 
nated  ticket  of  my  own  party,  just  as  now  I  should  rejoice  to  recollect 
that  I  had  co-operated  in  elevating  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Union  two 
such  noble-spirited  and  gifted  American  statesmen  as  Henry  Clay  and 
Daniel  Webster;  whose  names,  could  they  be  inscribed  on  the  Presi- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  193 

detitml  scroll  in  lieu  of  two  others  that  I  could  specify,  would  transmit 
our  loved  Republic,  to  the  men  of  other  ages  invested  with  a  grand  and 
imperishable  luster  that  all  the  vain  and  heartless  triumphs  of  faction, 
devoted  to  the  ingathering  of  the  vulgar  and  perishable  spoils  of  oflice, 
can  never  compen.-ate. '' 

This  divine  paragraph  comes  of  the  true  inspiration  of  the  historic 
muse,  and,  ini'jiuUcc^  rarely  has  the  Goddess  done  herself  greater  credit. 
Seldom,  indeed,  has  she  made  an  appeal  so  pathetic  to  the  masses  who 
wield  the  destinies  of  our  great  experiment.  Not  often  lias  she  stamped 
upon  the  shameless  front  of  faction  a  brand  more  ineffaceable. 

WASHINGTON,  August,  17,  187:5.  k.    J.   MKIGS. 

Though  I  can  not  but  feel  that  the  above  commendation 
is  very  far  beyond  my  merits  as  a  writer,  yet  am  I  not  at  all 
relucant  to  publish  it  liere,  for  sundry  reasons,  the  principal 
one  of  which  is  that  I  am  anxious  to  avail  myself  of  Mr. 
Meigs'  high  literary  authority  as  an  effectual  counteractive 
to  what  I  have  learned,  without  any  special  emotion,  that 
several  paltry  partisan  scribblers  have  been  publishing  of 
late  in  decrial  both  of  myself  and  of  my  cur  rente  catamo  ef 
fusions. 

What  my  friend  Mr.  Meigs  says,  with  something  of 
stoical  severity,  concerning  "  the  shameless  front  of 
faction,"  in  connection  with  that  which  I  have  myself 
heretofore  published  in  regard  to  the  honored  and  lamented 
S.  S.  Prentiss,  induces  me  to  notice  for  a  moment  one  or 
two  other  scenes  in  the  career  of  that  remarkable  man 
which  I  have  heretofore  preterrnitted. 

Mr.  Prentiss  was  by  nature  a  poet.  He  wrote  beautiful 
verses,  which  sometimes  seemed  to  be  impregnated  with 
the  loftiest  inspiration.  Several  of  his  fugitive  poetic 
productions,  which  I  have  often  heard  him  recite  to  a 
cboice  bevy  of  friends,  were  exquisitely  humorous.  His 
recitations  from  Bryon,  who  was  evidently  his  favorite 
among  modern  poets,  were  altogether  the  most  impressive 
and  electrifying  I  ever  listened  to.  Both  the  "  Siege  of 
Corinth,"  and  the  "  Isles  of  Greece,"  from  the  pages  of 
"  Don  J  nan,"  1  heard  him  repeat  more  than  once,  and  in 

13R 


194  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

liis  golden  convivial  moments  he  would  glowingly  enun 
ciate  Byron's  description  of  Alp,  the  Renegade — "  Alp 
with  the  right  arm  hare  " — dressed  in  character,  that  is 
to  say,  standing  up  in  a  fierce,  soldierly  attitude,  denuded 
of  his  coat,  and  with  his  shirt-sleeve  neatly  tucked  up 
ahove  the  elbow.  I  feel  confident  that  Bryon  himself 
would  have  been  made  more  sensible  of  the  grandeur  and 
nameless  beauties  of  his  own  noble  poetry  could  he  have 
listened  to  the  soul-rousing  recitals  of  one  so  strikingly 
like  himself,  both  in  genius  and  person,  even  to  the  natural 
lameness  of  his  right  foot. 

The  last  of  many  political  controversies  which  I  had 
with  Mr.  Prcntiss  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1840,  in  the 
town  of  Gallatin,  before  a  vast  crowd  of  ladies  and  gentle 
men.  The  confiict  continued  for  eleven  hours;  the 
speeches  being  delivered  alternatively.  I  shall  not  under 
take  to  describe  the  extraordinary  powers  displayed  by 
this  highly-gifted  orator  on  this  occasion.  I  would  will 
ingly  now  travel  a  thousand  miles  to  hear  what  I  then 
heard,  and  would  cheerfully  once  more  consent  to  act  as 
•in  humble  foil  to  show  off  more  conspicuously  the  surpass 
ing  brilliancy  of  this  wonderful  genius.  Xot  a  word  of 
discourtesy  was  spoken  during  this  memorable  day  and 
night  by  either  of  us  ;  we  slept  amicably  in  the  same  room 
that  night,  in  a  little  log  tavern  at  Gallatin,  find  traveled 
in  company  next  d  ay,  lunching  on  the  road-side  before  we 
parted  company  for  our  respective  homes. 

It  is  extremely  gratifying  to  me  now  to  recollect  that 
when  I  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1840, 
Mr.  Prentiss  expressed  himself  as  being  highly  rejoiced  at 
the  event.  A  month  or  two  after  I  took  my  seat  in  that 
body  he  addressed  m  e  a  friendly  letter,  in  which  he  earn 
estly  pressed  upon  my  attention  the  claim  of  a  worthy 
lady  to  remuneration  at  the  hands  of  the  Government, on 
account- of  a  considerable  sum  of  money  loaned  by  her 
ancestor,  a  celebrated  merchant  of  Amsterdam,  in  aid  of 


CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES.  195 

the  American  struggle  for  Independence.  Mr.  Prentiss 
had  no  pecuniary  interest  whatever  involved  in  the  case, 
but  he  had  examined  the  facts  connected  therewith,  and 
1  i«i(l  become  thoroughly  satisfied  that  the  demand  set  up 
was  a  just  one.  I  took  up  the  matter  at  his  instance 
at  once,  and  succeeded  in  getting  the  claim  paid  by  the 
order  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  I  hope  it  is  need 
less  to  say  that  I  received  not  a  dollar  for  my  trouble  in 
that  affair. 

My  attention  chances  this  moment  to  be  called  by  a 
friend  to  the  fact,  often,  as  I  understand,  published  here 
tofore  in  various  forms,  that  Mr.  Prentiss,  on  the  occasion 
of  my  last  duel  with  him,  audibly  made  some  ludicrous 
remark  about  my  "  wild  shooting,"  and  recommended  to 
certain  boys  who  had  climbed  trees  from  which  they  could 
conveniently  overlook  the  scene  of  combat,  to  descend 
therefrom  if  they  did  not  wish  that  I  should  shoot  them. 
I  pan  only  say  that  I  never  heard  of  this  incident  until 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  after  it  is  supposed  to  have 
occurred  ;  and  it  would  seem  to  be  hardly  in  unison  with 
Mr.  Prentiss'  high-bred  refinement  and  courtesy ;  but 
regarding  the  joke  as  told  rather  too  good  a  one  to  be 
spoiled  by  contradiction  I  have  not  heretofore  given  it 
any  serious  notice  ;  just  in  the  same  way  as  I  have  not 
deemed  it  necessary  in  any  formal  mariner  to  correct  a  mis 
take  made  by  the  worthy  Mr.  Lamnan  in  his  Congres 
sional  Dictionary,  who  has  put  me  down  as  being  just  four 
years  older  than  I  really  am. 

T  leave  all  such  trifles  as  these  for  the  discussion  and 
entertainment  of  those  who  shall  feel  more  interested  in 
them  than  I  could  possibly  do. 

The  pointed  expression  used  in  Mr.  Meigs' elegant  note, 
"  shameless  front  of  faction,"  brought  to  my  view  at  once 
the  language  of  a  certain  chief  of  faction  the  other  day  at 
the  Montgomery  White  Sulphur  Springs,  of  Virginia, 
where  he  again  attempted,  most  unamiably,  to  revive  the 


196  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

excitements    connected    with    the     late    unhappy     war ; 
charged  Generals  Lee  and  Joe  Johnston  with  having  been 

O 

"  cheated  "  by  the  Presidents  and  Generals  of  the  United 
States  into  a  deceitful  peace;  asserted  that,  had  the  subse 
quent  conduct,  of  the  Federal  Government  been  antici 
pated,  nothing  would  have  been  more  easy  than  for  the 
Confederates  to  have  won  their  independence  in  arms; 
praised  the  ladies  of  the  South  for  not  having  yet  sub 
mitted  to  reconstruction  ;  absurdly  menaced  a  renewal  of 
the  struggle  of  arms  for  the  principles  contended  for  for 
four  years  unsuccessfully  ;  and  did  all  in  his  power  to 
rekindle  the  feelings  of  sectional  unkindness  which  good 
citizens  everywhere  over  the  land  were  hoping  would  be 
soon  extinguished  forever.  This  is  the  spirit  of  faction 
\vitli  a  vengeance,  and  will,  I  fear,  bring  more  detriment 
upon  the  long-suffering  South  than  fifty  such  men  as  Mr. 
Davis  would  be  able  to  compensate  in  a  century.  I  trust 
that  the  Union-loving  men  of  the  Republic  will  soon  fiyd 
that  Mr.  Davis  speaks  only  for  himself  and  under  the 
promptings  of  his  own  restless  ambition,  and  not  for  the 
high-souled  and  patriotic  men  of  the  South  by  whom  he 
is  now  exceedingly  well  known.  If  1  thought  he  could 
understand  sound  Latinity  as  well  as  my  scholastic  friend 
Mr.  Meigs,  I  should  be  strongly  tempted  to  give  him  a  few 
lines  from  Horace's  description  of  the  disturbed  condition 
of  the  Roman  Republic  when  Sextus  Pornpey  was  about 
to  make  a  piratical  descent  upon  the  coast  of  Italy,  and 
say  to  him,  iu  application  to  our  own  noble  ship  of  State, 
now  lying  quietly  anchored  : 

O  iiiivis,  n;  To  re  i  it  in  inure  tr  novi 

Fliictus  1    O  ijuiil  iiiris?    Koriitc 
1'ort  inn.      Xomie  vides  lit 

Niidiim  renii^io  latns. 
El  mains  cclcri  .sancin.s  Alrico, 

Anteniiaeque  gcmant,  ac  :--ine  fmii 
Vix  tliii-aiv  cai-ina 

I'o<sint  i 
JEquor  ? 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  197 

There  is  one  orher  assertion  of  Mr.  Davis  which  may 
demand  a  graver  and  somewhat  more  pointed  response. 
He  says  that  he  has  yet  to  meet  with  the  first  Southern 
lady  who' has  been  reconstructed — -that  is  to  say,  who  is 
reconciled  to  the  Government.  Now,  if  he  means  sweep- 
ingly  to  declare  that  all  the  Southern  ladies  still  cherish 
the  spirit  of  rebellion,  he  certainly  does  them  most  cruel 
injustice,  and  may,  in  certain  cases  which  I  could  specify, 
bring  upon  them  a  misconstruction  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  officers  in  Washington,  that  might  result  in 
serious  injury  to  claims  now  pending  before  them.  It'  he 
does  not  mean  this,  but  oidy  intends  to  make  known  to 
the  public  that  he  has  not  happened  to  fall  personally 
into  the  company  of  any  Southern  female  not  now  breath 
ing  forth  "  war,  pestilence,  and  famine"  against  the  au 
thorities  at  Washington  and  to  those  who  submit  quietly 
to  their  power,  why  I  can  see  no  earthly  objection  to 
admitting  this  to  be  true,  since  it  may  be  that  Mr.  Davis 
has  not  been  quite  so  select  of  late  in  his  choice  of  politi 
cal  counselors  of  the  gentler  sex  as  he  might  have  been. 
If  he  expects  now  to  stir  up  rebellion  again  in  the  South 
by  such  pitiful  and  slavering  commendation  of  Southern 
women  as  trickled  so  deceitfully  from  his  lips  three  days 
ago  at  the  Montgomery  White  Sulphur  Springs,  I  can 
tell  him  that  he  never  made  a  greater  blunder  in  his  life. 
Our  women  of  the  South  are  not  yet  all  Amazons,  and  all 
the  more  refined  and  intelligent  among  them  do  ardently 
desire  peace  and  the  universal  diffusion  of  kind  feeling 
among  all  classes  of  our  people,  from  the  wave-resounding 
shore  of  the  boisterous  Atlantic  to  the  sweet,  quiet  mar 
gin  of  the  far-off  Pacific. 


198  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXL 
M'NUTT — JEFFERSON  DAVIS — ANDREW  JOHNSON. 

At  the  special  request  of  friends  to  whose  judgments  I 
owe  much  deference  —friends  who  have  been  long  familiar 
with  some  very  curious  and  stirring  events  in  1113-  own 
early  history  which  I  have  heretofore  refrained  from  com 
municating  to  the  public  at  large  from  the  apprehension 
which  I  could  not  but  feel  that  by  doing  so  in  detail  I 
should  possibly  incur  the  charge  of  egotism,  (so  likely  to 
be  applied  in  all  such  cases) — I  shall  now  proceed  to  give 
some  account  of  a  few  matters  not  heretofore  narrated. 

A  day  or  two  after  I  reached  the  city  of  Natchez,  in 
the  winter  of  1830-'31, 1  was  introduced  to  an  individual 
of  whom  I  had  then  never  previously  heard.  His  name 
was  Alexander  G.  McNutt.  He  was  a  native  of  Rock- 
bridge  county,  Virginia,  and  was  doubtless  very  credit 
ably  connected  there.  Mr.  McNutt  appeared  to  be  at 
that  time  about  thirty-two  or  three  years  old.  He  was  a 
man  of  huge  bulk;  exhibited  in  a  very  striking  manner 
all  the  ordinary  indications  of  good  living,  and  had  be 
come  much  renowned  as  a  liberal  consumer  both  of  meats 
and  of  strong  drink.  He  was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  and 
had  located  in  the  city  of  Vicksburg  some  ten  years  be 
fore.  He  got  but  little  employment  in  his  profession  for 
several  years,  but  Mr.  Huff,  a  wealthy  merchant  in  Vicks 
burg,  having  then  recently  retired  from  business,  and  hav 
ing  a  great  deal  of  money  owing  to  him  by  his  numerous 
^customers,  threw,  to  the  general  surprise  of  the  commu 
nity,  the  whole  mass  of  his  outstanding  claims  into  the 
hands  of  McNutt  for  collection  ;  for  whom  he  had  in  some 
way  contracted  a  strong  partiality.  It  is  but  justice  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  199 

Mr.  McNutt  to  say  that  lie  was  very  diligent  and  success 
ful  in  the  task  thus  devolved  on  him,  and,  in  a  year  or 
two  after  Mr.  Huff's  business  was  wound  up  by  him,  he 
got  into  a  very  large  collecting  practice,  and  obtained  re 
cognition  as  a  man  of  considerable  pecuniary  means.  lie 
then  formed  a  partnership  with  one  Joel  S.  Cameron  in 
the  business  of  cotton-planting,  and  at  the  time  of  my 
meeting  him  at  Natchez,  as  mentioned,  this  cotton-plant 
ing  firm  was  reported  to  have  made  the  largest  crops  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  hands  employed  ever  known 
in  Mississippi.  Perhaps  Cameron  was,  upon  the  whole, 
one  of  the  most  skillful  planters  that  had  ever  undertaken 
the  cultivation  of  the  earth  ;  and  the  plantation  upon 
which  he  was  located  had  been  long  celebrated  as  being 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  growing  of  cotton.  It  was  situ 
ated  among  the  alluvial  hills  which  surround  Vicksburg 
on  all  sides  except  along  the  river  bank,  and  inclosed 
within  its  limits  a  deep  and  beautiful  lake,  the  vaporous 
effusion  of  which  was  supposed  to  be  particularly  propi 
tious  to  the  growth  of  vegetation  of  every  description.  This 
was  the  precise  state  of  affairs  when  I  first  saw  A.  G. 
McNutt  in  the  city  of  Natchez,  a  little  more  than  forty 
years  ago.  Having  determined  to  settle  in  Vicksburg,  I 
went  thither  late  in  the  month  of  January,  1831,  leaving 
my  new  acquaintance,  McNutt,  behind  me  in  Natchez, 
with  other  members  of  the  Vicksburg  bar,  attending  upon 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  then  in  session. 

A  few  days  after  getting  to  Vicksburg  a  report  reached 
that  place  that  a  personal  difficulty,  growing  out  of  a 
heated  conversation  upon  State  politics,  had  arisen  at  one 
of  the  hotels  in  Natchez,  between  McNutt  and  a  brother 
attorney,  Mr.  Joseph  Smith,  (with  whom  afterward  I  be 
came  well  acquainted,)  in  the  course  of  which  the  parties 
interchanged  uncivil  and  insulting  language,  and  even 
came  to  blows ;  that  is  to  say,  Smith  slapped  McNutt's 
jaws,  who,  unfortunately,  at  the  moment,  having  lost  his 


200  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

presence  of  mind,  made  no  attempt  to  retaliate  in  kind,  or 
even  to  defend  himself.  This  was  a  most  deplorable  state 
of  affairs,  it  must  he  confessed,  considering  tin;  condition 
of  public  sentiment  in  Mississippi  in  regard  to  such  mat 
ters  at  that  period.  When  McXutt  got  hack  to  Yicks- 
burg,  which  he  did  in  a  few  days,  he  immediately  sought 
an  interview  with  me,  and  asked  my  advice  as  to  the 
course  he  should  pursue  in  order  to  the  vindication  of  his 
wounded  personal  honor.  He  requested  me  to  state 
frankly  to  him  what  it  would  he  hest  for  him  to  do.  I 
inquired  of  him  immediately  whether  he  recognized  what 
was  called  the  code  of  honor.  He  said  he  did.  ;'  Then," 
said  I,  "  the  matter  seems  to  me  to  he  of  very  easy  solu 
tion.  If  you  had  stricken  Mr.  Smith  in  turn,  when  you 
received  the  indignity  at  his  hands  of  which  you  com 
plain,  I  should  say,  without  hesitation,  that  you  were  not 
hound  to  carry  this  matter  any  further;  but  as  you  did 
not,  you  are  now  bound,  in  order  to  retrieve  your  charac 
ter,  certainly  at  this  moment  under  a  cloud,  either  to  at 
tack  him  on  the  street-side  with  weapons,  after  having 
given  him  due  warning,  or  to  send  him  a  challenge  to 
meet  you  in  the  mode  recognized  among  gentlemen.  To 
the  former  I  am  utterly  opposed,  since  a  fight  on  the  street- 
side  might  involve  the  lives  of  innocent  persons,  and  this 
would  be,  moreover,  in  my  judgment,  an  indecent  viola 
tion  of  the  rules  of  social  decorum  and  propriety.  I  would 
advise  you,  therefore,  to  send  Air.  Smith  a  challenge  im 
mediately,  unless  you  have  determined  to  submit  dis 
gracefully  to  the  outrage  of  which  you  have  been  the  re 
cipient.''  He  then  told  me  that  he  must  ask  my  aid  in 
the  preparation  of  a  challenge,  as  he  was  wholly  unac 
customed  to  the  mode  of  procedure  used  in  such  cases.  I 
drew  up  a  short  note  for  him,  in  the  usual  form,  and. 
after  having  read  the  same  in  his  hearing,  handed  it  to 
him  for  signature.  He  took  it  and  read  it  over,  but  in  a 
second  or  two  I  saw  from  the  discomposure  which  he 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  201 

evinced  that  he  was  much  in  the  condition  of  the  valiant 
Boh  Acres,  as  descrihed  so  inimitably  by  Sheridan.  He 
read  the  challenge  over  several  times,  his  agitation  deep 
ening  every  instant,  and  finally  said  to  me:  u  I  would 
prefer  keeping  this  paper  by  me  until  to-morrow  morning, 
with  a  view  to  a  slight  alteration  in  its  phraseology  ;  to 
morrow  I  will  bring  it  to  your  lodgings,  and  ask  you  to  de 
liver  it  to  my  adversary."  "  Very  well,"  said  I;  u  the 
note  should  surely  be  such  a  one  as  you  could  yourself 
fully  approve,  and  I  will  now  withdraw,  with  a  view  to 
giving  you  an  opportunity  of  well  considering  the  busi 
ness,  and  coming  to  such  conclusion  as  may  prove  entirely 
satisfactory  to  yourself  hereafter." 

It  is  almost  useless  to  say  that  the  subject  of  the  chal 
lenge  was  never  again  discussed  between  Mr.  N~utt  and 
myself;  and  in  a  few  months  all  mention  of  the  matter 
in  social  circles  was  discontinued. 

In  less  than  two  years  from  this  period  the  good  citi 
zens  of  Vicksburg  and  its  vicinage  were  greatly  shocked 
by  a  murder,  which  was  ascertained  to  have  occurred  upon 
the  plantation  cultivated  by  Cameron  and  McNutt,  the 
latter  of  whom  resided  in  the  city.  Cameron  was  reputed 
to  have  been  slain  by  his  own  negroes,  four  of  whom  were 
apprehended  and  brought  to  town  for  trial.  I  was  ap 
pointed  by  the  County  Court  of  Warren  county  to  con 
duct  the  examination,  under  the  supervision  of  the  mem 
bers  of  that  tribunal,  before  which  alone  at  that  time 
slaves  were  triable ;  and  I  did  so.  The  negroes  were 
ably  and  skillfully  defended;  but  the  proof  against  them 
was  clear  and  conclusive,  and  all  of  them  put  under  trial 
were  convicted,  and  thereafter  hung.  It  appeared  on  the 
investigation  that  this  murder  had  been  concerted  some 
time  before;  that  the  negroes  implicated  had  assaulted 
Cameron  with  clubs  as  he  passed  early  in  the  morning,  on 
horseback,  upon  a  narrow  path,  which  ran  along  the  verge 
of  a  thicket  of  brushwood,  where  the  murderers  lay  con- 


'202  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

cealed,  and  when  ho  was  proceeding  from  his  own  house 
to  the  field  where  his  hands  were  at  work.  After  he  had 
been  killed  by  repeated  blows,  the  murderers  attached 
large  iron  weights  to  the  exanimate  body,  and  sank  it  in 
the  waters  of  the  lake,  which  was  not  far  distant.  The 
horse  of  Cameron  returning  to  his  house  riderless,  some 
suspicion  was  at  once  aroused  in  regard  to  the  fate  of 
Cameron  himself;  but  his  death  was  not  certainly  found 
out  to  have  occurred  until  a  violent  thunder-storm  had  so 
agitated  the  waters  in  which  the  body  had  been  sub 
merged  that  it  rose  to  the  surface,  where  it  was  discov 
ered  and  brought  to  land. 

There  was  one  of  the  murderers  who  was  a  very' remark 
able  man.  His  name  was  Daniel.  He  was  considerably 
above  the  ordinary  stature,  well  shaped,  and  of  a  very 
commanding  aspect  and  bearing.  His  conduct  while  on 
trial  was  singularly  calm  and  decorous,  and  he  was  evi 
dently  without  hope  of  acquittal  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  investigation.  A  fact  came  to  light  in  the  course 
of  the  trial  which  attracted  some  attention  at  the  time, 
and  called  forth  also  some  comment.  Daniel  had  been  for 
many  years  a  great  favorite  with  his  master,  and  it  was 
said  that  the  bosom  of  this  negro  was  the  dark  repository 
of  some  secrets  which  Cameron  had  much  interest  in  keep 
ing  concealed  from  the  world.  It  was  stated,  and  gener 
ally  believed  too,  that  Cameron  had  at  different  times  put 
to  death  seven  or  eight  of  his  own  slaves,  whose  bodies 
were  suspected  to  have  been  interred  in  places  of  sepulture 
only  known  to  Daniel  and  himself.  Cameron  had  fallen 
out  with  his  comrade  in  iniquity,  who  had  been  for  many 
jears  his  foreman — for  some  reason  not  fully  developed  in 
testimony ;  and  with  a  view  to  gratifying  the  feelings  of 
revenge  which  he  cherished  toward  Daniel,  he  had  re 
tracted  a  singular  indulgence  which  he  had  previously 
and  for  many  years  extended  to  him.  This  indulgence 
had  relation  to  the  two  wives  whom  he  had  been  allowed 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  203 

to  marry  and  bold  under  marital  authority  after  the 
fashion  of  Mormonisrn.  Cameron  had,  a  few  weeks  be 
fore,  abstracted  from  him  one  of  these  wives,  and,  as  was 
said,  the  particular  one  to  whom  Daniel  was  most  at 
tached,  and  had  solemnly  declared  to  him  that  in  future 
be  should  be  a  practical  monogamist.  This  treatment,  it 
was  shown,  had  been  the  main  cause  of  Daniel's  hostility 
to  bis  once  much-beloved  lord  and  master.  The  murder 
ers  all  died  without  murmur  or  complaint,  except  Daniel. 
He,  after  being  carried  back  to  jail,  uttered  many  things, 
whether  true  or  false,  of  a  nature  to  give  great  umbrage 
to  Mr.  McXutt,  and  threatened,  a  day  or  two  before  his 
execution  occurred,  to  develop  on  the  scaffold,  ere  the 
fatal  rope  should  do  its  office,  circumstances  calculated  to 
throw  the  whole  community  into  commotion.  Mr. 
MoN"utt,  being  advised  of  these  menaces,  proceeded  to  the 
jail  window,  and  made  known  to  the  prisoner  that  if  he 
continued  to  repeat  the  language  which  had  previously 
issued  from  his  lips  he  would  cause  all  his  teeth  to  be 
drawn  by  a  dentist.  This  silenced  him  for  a  time;  but 
when  he  came  upon  the  scaffold  he  attempted  to  address 
the  assembled  crowd  in  vindication  of  himself.  This  he 
was  not  permitted  to  do  ;  but  when  he  began  to  speak,  in 
accordance,  as  was  well  understood,  with  the  directions  of 
McN"utt,  the  drum  was  most  vociferously  beaten,  so  as  to 
drown  the  voice  of  the  dying  man,  and  he  was  thus  con 
fusedly  hurried  into  eternity. 

The  community  could  have  little  or  no  regret  that 
Cameron  had  ceased  to  live.  He  had  been  long  recog 
nized  as  a  monster  of  cruelty,  and  had  little  social  inter 
course  except  with  his  own  father-in-law — a  blacksmith 
in  the  neighborhood  by  the  name  of  Lewis — who  had 
been  himself  twice  tried  for  murder,  within  my  own 
knowledge,  and  had  barely  escaped  capital  punishment. 
The  last  of  the  murders  with  which  he  had  been  charged 
was  one  inflicted  upon  a  negro  fellow,  whom  he  had 


204  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

actually  held  upon  the  burning  coals  until  the  tire  found 
its  way  to  his  vitals.  I  regret  to  say  that  in  this  part  of 
the  South,  at  the  time  referred  to,  juries  were  not  at  all 
aceustoincd  to  hang  white  men  for  murder  done  upon  tin- 
sons  and  daughters  of  Africa. 

Mc.Nu.tt  was  not  yet  satiated  with  blood.  He  insti 
tuted  a  prosecution  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  \\rarren 
county  against  a  free  man  of  color  called  Mercer  Byrd, 
whom  he  charged  in  the  indictment  to  have  been  acces 
sory  after  the  fact  to  Cameron's  murder.  It  is  certain 
that  the  watch  of  the  murdered  Cameron  was  found  buried 
in  Byrd's  hen-house.  The  fact  of  its  being  deposited  there 
was  disclosed  by  one  of  those  who  had  been  executed,  but 
he  did  not  assert  that  the  secreting  ot  the  watch  in  that 
place  was  at  all  known  to  Mercer  Byrd.  Mr.  Prentiss,  as 
I  have  heretofore  incidentally  mentioned,  was  employed  to 
aid  in  the  prosecution  of  Byrd,  and  for  so  doing  he  com 
pelled  McNutt  to  pay  him  §4,000  in  cash,  which  was  in 
truth  but  a  reasonable  fee.  Notwithstanding  Mr.  Pren 
tiss'  high  powers  as  an  advocate  Mercer  Byrd  was  very 
near  escaping.  Two  verdicts  were  obtained  against  him, 
which  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  afterward  reversed 
on  full  argument.  On  the  third  trial  he  was  again  con 
victed,  and  hung. 

I  have  heretofore  stated  that  I  was  one  of  Byrd's  legal 
defenders.  The  day  before  he  was  executed  I  was  sent 
for  to  the  jail  where  he  was  confined,  in  order  that  he 
might  advise  with  me  in  regard  to  an  exceedingly  deli 
cate  matter.  I  lived  eight  miles  from  the  place  ot'  his 
imprisonment,  and  was  at  the  time  very  far  from  being 
well.  I  went  to  see  the  unfortunate  prisoner,  notwith 
standing.  On  entering  the  cell  I  found  much  to  awaken 
both  surprise  and  gra  ification.  It  was  reported  that  the 
prisoner  had  a  day  before  professed  to  have  experienced  a 
change  of  heart,  and  it  was  said  that  he  was  not  only  pre 
pared  for  death,  but  anxious  to  quit  a  world  where  he 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  20>) 

had  seen  so  little  of  unalloyed  comfort  and  happiness.  T 
was  too  -unwell  to  sit  up,  and  had,  therefore,  to  recline 
upon  the  prison-floor,  over  which  I  had  spread  my  cloak, 
while  I  listened  to  a  paper  called  his  confession,  which  he 
had  employed  a  gentleman  of  great  respectability  in  the 
neighborhood  to  draw  up  for  him.  It  was,  indeed,  a  most 
astonishing  document,  lie  charged,  upon  the  statements 
made  to  him  by  Daniel  and  his  co-murderers,  as  well  as 
upon  certain  pregnant  facts  known  to  him  personally, 
that  Cameron  had  been  murdered  at  the  instigation  of 
McNutt  himself,  and  he  pointed  in  support  of  his  accusa 
tion  to  the  fact  that  McNutt  was  then  in  possession  of 
Cameron's  whole  fortune  (which  he  held  in  part  as  sur 
viving  partner)  as  well  as  of  his  wire,  whom  he  had  mar 
ried  in  seven  months  after  the  death  of  Cameron — refer 
ring  impressively  to  the  circumstance  that  this  same  mar 
riage  had  been  celebrated  amid  extraordinary  festivities, 
extending  through  two  entire  days  and  nights.  This 
scene  was  indeed  a  very  severe  trial  to  me,  but  I  endeav 
ored  to  go  through  it  with  dignity  and  composure.  So 
soon  as  the  reading  of  the  confession  was  brought  to  an 
end  I  rose  up  from  my  prostrate  position,  and  addressed 
my  wretched  client  substantially  thus:  "  Mercer  Byrd, 
is  it  true  that  you  have  made  your  peace  with  Heaven, 
and  are  ready  now  to  meet  the  great  Judge  of  the  quick 
and  the  dead  in  the  world  of  spirits?"  He  answered: 
"  It  is  true  that  I  have  experienced  the  forgiveness  of  my 
sins,  and  I  am  prepared  to  meet  my  God  face  to  face."  I 
then  said  :  "  Mercer  Byrd,  do  you  know  that  you  are  to 
die  to-morrow  morning  at  11  o'clock?"  He  answered: 
"  Certainly  ;  I  have  no  hope  of  escaping  the  death  to 
which  I  am  sentenced."  I  then  said  in  continuation : 
"  Mercer  Byrd,  are  you  willing  to  put  at  hazard  your 
eternal  salvation  upon  the  truth  of  the  statements  con 
tained  in  the  paper  just  read  ?  "  He  responded,  most  sol 
emnly  and  emphatically,  "  L  am."  Upon  which  I  ad- 


'200  CASKET   OP   REMINISCENCES. 

iressed  him  thus  :  u  Mercer  Byrd,  I  have  served  you  long 
and  faithfully  ;  I  have  received  not  a  dollar  for  my  ser 
vices  ;  I  expect  nothing,  and  would  have  nothing,  from 
you  in  the  way  of  pecuniary  recompense.  I  have  now  a 
single  personal  favor  to  ask  of  you  :  Let  me  suppress  this 
confession;  its  publication  can  do  no  good,  ar.d  may  do 
much  harm.  Leave  the  world,  I  heseech  you,  in  peace 
with  all  mankind — even  with  those  whom  you  helieve  to 
have  persecuted  you."  There  was  a  serene  smile  upon  the1 
countenance  of  the  dying  man  as  he  said :  "  Do  as  you 
please  in  the  matter  ;  I  am  content."  I  took  my  leave  of 
him,  and  never  saw  him  more. 

Mercer  Byrd  was  a  tall,  fine-looking  mulatto  man,  of 
much  intelligence,  and  of  excellent  character  before  being 
charged  with  this  offense.  I  had  known  him  well  for  six 
or  seven  years,  and  had  also  been  acquainted  with  his 
family  in  Xorth  Alabama.  I  have  heretofore  stated  that 
the  late  Judge  Shark ey  and  the  Hon.  George  Coalter  as 
sisted  me  in  his  defense.  I  will  now  add  that  both  these 
gentlemen  concurred  with  me  in  believing  Byrd  alto 
gether  innocent  of  the  crime  imputed  to  him. 

A  year  or  two  passed  away  after  this  catastrophe  with 
out  any  knowledge  of  the  allegations  contained  in  Byrd's 
confession  being  obtained  by  the  community  generally, 
though  the  nature  and  extent  of  these  allegations  were 
known  to  about  a  dozen  persons,  some  of  whom  are  yi't 
alive.  Mr.  McNutt,  having  become  then  a  wealthy  man, 
aspired  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  Mississippi.  The  Demo 
crats  of  the  State  were  then  struggling  hard  to  defeat  the 
celebrated  George  Poindexterin  his  effort  to  be  re-elected 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  where  his  acrimonious  oppo 
sition  to  General  Jackson's  administration  had  given 
much  offense  to  the  adherents  of  this  loved  and  honored 
political  chief.  McXutt  was  himself  a  Democrat,  while  a 
very  large  majority  of  the  voters  of  Warren  county  were 
Whigs.  The  Whig  candidate  in  that  county  for  the  State 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  207 

Senate  was  irreconcilably  opposed  to  Poindexter's  re-elec 
tion.  So  McNutt,  when  he  became  a  candidate,  pledged 
himself  to  vote  for  Poindexter's  re-election  if  he  himself 
should  be  elected  to  the  position  which  he  sought.  The 
desired  result  was  in  this  way  easily  enough  achieved,  and 
during  the  next  winter  Mci^utt  was  seated  in  the  State 
Senate,  where,  taking  a  very  extreme  part  against  the 
banks  of  the  State,  to  many  of  which  he  was  himself  a 
large  debtor,  he  managed  to  procure  a  nomination  for 
the  office  of  Governor  at  the  hands  of  some  dozen  of  his 
legislative  associates  of  the  ultra  anti-bank  stamp,  and 
took  the  field  as  a  candidate  accordingly.  There  were 
then  many  Democrats  in  Mississippi  (including  myself) 
who  thought  that  the  elevation  of  Mr.  Mc^utt  to  the 

O 

office  of  Governor  of  the  State,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  he  had  recently  displayed  much  more  of  a  certain 
sort  of  ability  than  anyone  had  previously  suspected  him 
of  possessing,  would  be  productive  of  much  evil  in  various 
ways,  and  would  especially  give  encouragement  to  a  low 
and  huckstering  dernagogism  which  was  then  beginning 
to  display  itself  in  a  particularly  menacing  and  disgust 
ing  form.  So  we  urged  that  able,  high-toned,  and  truly 
Roman-like  personage,  Major  Benjamin  W.  Edwards, 
(nephew  to  the  worthy  personage  of  the  same  name  who 
was  the  early  protector  and  patriot  of  the  celebrated  Wil 
liam  Wirt,  and  who  so  long  represented  in  the  Legisla 
ture  of  Maryland  the  adjoining  county  of  Montgomery,) 
to  take  the  field  against  him.  Major  Edwards  reluctantly 
consented  ;  so  that  there  were  now  in  the  arena  four  can 
didates  for  the  office  of  Governor,  Mr.  MoN~utt,  Major 
Edwards,  Colonel  John  A.  Grirnball,  and  Dr.  Jacob  B. 
Morgan,  two  Whigs  and  two  Democrats.  Major  Ed 
wards  unfortunately  died  in  the  midst  of  the  canvass,  and 
I  was  called  upon  to  deliver  his  funeral  eulogy  in  the  town 
of  Clinton  in  the  simmer  of  1837.  McNutt  was  afterward 
elected  by  a  mere  plurality  of  popular  votes. 


208  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

In  the  midst  of  that  gubernatorial  canvass,  in  whicli  T 
was  really  taking  no  very  active  part,  McNutt  went 
through  the  State  making  characteristic  speeches  every 
where,  and  succeeded  in  deluding  many  as  to  his  true 
character  and  purposes.  A  few  days  before  he  reached 
the  vicinage  of  the  State  capital,  where  I  then  resided,  I 
learned  with  some  surprise  and  regret  that  he  had  more 
than  once  mentioned  my  own  name  very  disrespectfully 
and  unkindly  in  several  of  his  addresses  to  the  people,  and 
that  he  had  charged  me  with  being  influenced  by  motives 
in  opposing  him  of  which  lie  well  knew  me  to  be  utterly 
incapable.  I  determined  to  put  an  end  to  this  sort  of  as- 
sailment  without  delay;  add  with  this  view  I  proceeded 
to  the  town  of  Brandon,  distant  from  Jackson  only  ten 
miles,  where  he  was  expected  to  speak,  for  the  purpose  of 
confronting  him.  So  soon  as  we  met  at  the  hotel  of  the 
village,  in  presence  of  a  large  crowd,  I  demanded  of  him, 
in  a  calm  and  courteous  manner,  whether  he  had  used  the 
injurious  language  in  relation  to  myself  and  my  public 
conduct  which  had  been  reported  to  me.  With  much 
confusion  and  embarrassment,  he  confessed  that  he  had. 
I  then  demanded  that  he  should  make  a  formal  retraxit-ot' 
all  that  he  had  said  of  me  of  a  disrespectful  nature  in 
hearing  of  those  who  were  them  assembling  to  hear  him. 
This  he  refused  to  do.  I  then  turned  to  him  and  said: 
"Sir,  you  know  well  that  I  have  never  been  your  enemy. 
For  some  years  past,  there  has  been  no  familiarity  between 
us.  I  have  openly  but  respectfully  opposed  your  election 
to  the  office  of  Governor,  of  which  I  well  know  you  to  be 
altogether  unworthy.  You  have  been  guilty  of  traducing 
my  character  when  I  was  not  present  to  defend  it.  I 
have  now  demanded  justice  at  your  hands.  This  you  re 
fuse  to  afford.  No  one  could  know  better  than  I  do  that 
you  do  not  hold  yourself  responsible  to  the  laws  of  honor. 
No  recourse  now  is  left  me  but  one.  I  will  not  dishonor 
myself  by  applying  to  you  language  of  personal  denuncia- 


OASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

tion,  which,   however    merited    by  you,  I  could  not   use 
without  some  loss  of  self-respect.     I  now  notify  you,  there 
fore,  in  presence  of  this  multitude,  that  you  have  been  en 
gaged  for  the  last  two  or  three  weeks  in  calumniating  a 
man  who  has,  without  your  knowing  it,  been  heretofore 
your  best  benefactor.''     He  looked  very  much  surprised. 
I  then  gave  an  account  of  the  confession  made  by  Mercer 
By rd  ;  of  my  agency  in  preventing  the  publication  of  the 
charges  contained  in  it,  and  said  :  "  Now,  sir,  you  plainly 
perceive    that   I  have  heretofore  saved  you  from  being 
placed  before  the  public  in  an  attitude  which  could  not 
but  have  given  you  great  and  permanent  annoyance.     I 
do  not  even  now  say  that  I  am  satisfied  of  your  guilt ;  for 
God  knows  that  I  have  been  struggling  for  years  to  avoid 
considering  you  so  bad  a  man  as  the  dying  Byrd  charged 
you  with  being ;  but  I  do  now  assert,  what  you  too  must 
feel  to  be  true,  that  had  I  not  interposed,  five  years  ago, 
to  prevent  the  publication  of  that   same  confession,  you 
would  never  have  been  able  to  occupy  a  seat  in  the  Legis 
lature  of  the  State,  or  have  had  the  presumption  now  to 
present  yourself  as  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  Governor, 
i  feel  now  compelled  to  go  a  little  further,  and  say  to  you 
that  if  you  mention  my  name  in  your  speech  to-day  I  will 
expose  \'ou  at  once  to  public  infamy  ;  and  that  if  you  fail 
to  revoke  this  day  all  the  unjust  aspersions  which  you 
have  heretofore  heaped  upon  me,  at   your  meeting  in  the 
city  of  Jackson  to-morrow  I  will  be  present,  and  then  re 
quite  you  in  full  for  all  your  unprovoked  attempts  to  in 
jure  me."'    He  burst  into  tears  and  appealed  to  those  pres 
ent  for  sympathy,  but  received  none.     That  day  he  spoke, 
and   made   no  mention  of  my  name.     I  went  to  the  old 
capitol  building  in  the  city  of  Jackson,  next  day,  to  meet 
him  in  discussion,  as  I  had  threatened  to  do.     lie  came  to 
the  back  part  of  the  building,  and  looked  through  the 
window  to  see  who  was  present,  and,  finding  that  I  had 


0 
CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCKS. 

been  as  good  as  my  promise,  he  silently  retired.  Under 
these  circumstances  I  brought  thisatt'air  to  a  termination 
by  publish  ing  all  the  preceding  tacts  in  the  newspaper 
called  the  Mississippian,  in  a  tile  of  which  my  long  and 
very  denunciatory  address  to  the  people  of  Mississippi  may 
be  yet  seen,  accompanied  with  comments  such  as  I  shall 
not  now  recite. 

in  the  office  of  Governor  it  is  but  just  to  say  that 
McXutt  got  along  tolerably  well,  though  he  was  but  a 
poor  representative  of  the  virtue  and  refinement  of  the 
ueople  over  whose  civic  concerns  he  presided.  A  year  or 
two  after  his  course  of  gubernatorial  services  had  drawn 
to  an  end  he  formally  announced  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  the  position  of  United  States  Senator,  and  sent  forth 
printed  handbills  making  known  the  times  and  places 
where  he  would  address  his  fellow-citizens  in  support  of 
his  claims  to  be  chosen  Senator,  as  the  successor  of  Mr. 
John  Henderson,  whose  official  term  was  just  about  expir 
ing.  This  announcement  of  Mr.  McXutt  as  a  Senatorial 
candidate  gave  a  good  deal  of  uneasiness  to  several  gentle 
men  who  were  then  already  known  to  desire  the  Senato 
rial  position,  among  whom  were  John  A.  Quitman,  Al 
bert  G.  Brown,  Jacob  Thompson,  and  William  M.  Gwin, 
all  of  whom  were  men  of  prominence  and  of  great  and 
ascertained  popularity.  The  Senatorial  candidacy  of 
McXutt  was  productive  of  particular  solicitude  also  in 
the  minds  of  some  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  he  openly 
proclaimed  his  determination  to  contine himself  in  the  po 
litical  canvass  which  he  was  about  to  commence  to  dis 
cussing  the  question  of  repudiating  what  were  known  as 
the  Union  Bank  bonds.  This  course  on  the  part  of  Gov 
ernor  McNutt  was  the  more  surprising  and  disgraceful 
because  of  the  fact  that  he  had  himself  imparted  dignity 
to  these  very  bonds  by  subscribing  them  as  Governor,  and 
attaching  to  them  the  great  seal  of  the  State.  [  was 


CASKET  oi?  REMINISCENCES.  -211 

really  at  this  time  only  u  a  looker-on  in  Vienne,"  and  was 
quietly  pursuing  my  profession,  having  no  earthly  desire 
for  political  promotion  of  any  kind.  But  this  quiet  and 
agreeable  life  I  was  not  permitted  to  enjoy,  for  one  day, 
when  proceeding  to  my  own  home  in  the  city  of  Jackson, 
General  Quitman  came  to  me  and  said  that  he  had  just 
been  consulting  several  gentlemen  who  were,  as  he  was, 
adverse  to  the  Senatorial  aspirations  of  Governor  McNutt, 
in  regard  to  the  means  of  defeating  him,  and  that  all  of 
them  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  only  way  of  ac 
complishing  this  object  was  to  get  some  suitable  person  to 
attend  upon  his  proposed  journeys  through  the  State,  and 
respond  to  all  his  speeches.  He  added,  in  a  manner  very 
flattering,  that  I  had  been  unanimously  selected  as  the 
champion  who  was  to  go  forth  to  do  battle  against  this 
modern  Samson  Agonistes.  I  did  not  agree  with  these 
gentlemen  as  to  the  propriety  of  my  assuming  the  per 
formance  of  this  duty,  and  at  first  positively  declined  it, 
adding  that  my  personal  relations  with  McXutt  \vere 
such  as  would  make  it  particularly  disagreeable  to  me  to 
pursue  him  thorough  the  State  in  the  manner  proposed. 
"  Besides,"  (as  I  said  to  General  Quitman  when  he  was 
urging  this  task  upon  me,)  k'  recollect  that  I  have  already 
openly  declared  you  to  be  my  choice  for  United  States 
Senator;  is  there  not  danger  that  if  I  go  forth  against 
McNutt,  and  succeed  in  securing  his  defeat,  the  members 
of  the  Legislature,  when  that  body  shall  assemble  next 
winter,  grateful  as  they  will  naturally  be  to  the  performer 
of  such  a  service,  may  conclude  to  take  me  up,  whether  I 
wish  it  or  not,  and  send  me  to  the  Senate  instead  of  send 
ing  yourself,  as  I  hope  that  they  will?  I  warn  you  before 
hand,  my  excellent  friend,  of  the  impending  danger;  I 
shall  certainly  not  seek  the  place  myself,  either  directly  or 
indirectly  ;  every  day  of  the  canvass  I  shall  admit  my  pre 
ference  lor  you,  and  assign  as  good  reasons  as  I  can  for 


-\'2  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

this  preference  ;  every  day  I  shall  defend  yourself,  Gov 
ernor  Brown,  Dr.  Gwin,  and  Mr.  Thompson  against 
McXutt's  assaults;  every  day  I  shall  carry  the  war  into 
Africa,  also  with  what  force  and  skill  I  may  possess;  but 
L  tell  you  again,  very  solemnly,  that  if  you  persist  in  forc 
ing  me  into  this  painful  and  arduous  struggle  the  proba 
bility  is  that  L  may  myself  he  chosen  Senator."  As  this 
enterprise  was  pressed  upon  my  attention,  day  after  day, 
and  I  may  well  say  hour  after  hour,  at  length  [  concluded 
to  undertake  it.  And  here  occurs  to  me  a  sentence  or  two 
from  an  interesting  work  that  I  have  just  read,  which 
runs  thus :  u  Every  life  as  it  unrolls  has  its  turning-points, 
its  critical  moments.  Among  these  turning-points  there 
is  often  one  that  constitutes  the  crisis  of  being.  School, 
college,  business,  friendship,  love,  accidents,  deaths,  may 
all  prove  such  to  us.  None  the  less  are  our  schemes,  our 
chances,  or  our  mistakes  and  disappointments.  There 
conies  also  a  great  spiritual  crisis  to  which  ordinary  life 
is  related,  either  as  the  preparation  or  the  result.''  So  it 
seems  to  me  now  to  have  been  with  myself  in  this  case.  [ 
followed  Governor  McXutt  from  county  to  county 
through  the  whole  State  of  Mississippi,  and  met  him  he- 
fore  the  people.  Every  day  he  assaulted,  with  the  utmost 
fierceness,  Quitman,  Brown,  Thompson,  Gwin,  and  their 
prominent  friends  in  the  different  parts  of  the  State,  de 
nouncing  the  gentlemen  named  as  "Sleepies,"  who  did 
not  dare  to  come  out  to  meet  him  in  open  fight,  but  who 
expected  quietly  to  clutch  the  Senatorial  prize  at  the  end 
of  the  conflict,  lie  every  day  compared  himself  to  some 
skillful  snake-killer  with  his  flail,  striking  about  him 
on  all  sides  in  the  thick  grass,  with  a  hope  of  killing  the 
serpents  that  he  knew  to  be  nestling  therein.  Every  day 
did  I  defend  these  gentlemen  and  their  absent  friends 
with  what  ability  E  possessed,  and  I  had  the  better  op 
portunity  to  do  so  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  Mr. 


(\\SKKT    OK    REMINISCENCES. 

McNutt  constantly  acknowledged  me  to  be  an  excellent 
Democrat,  with  whom  lie  wished  to  have  no  collision, 
while  he  charged  those  who  came  under  his  chastising 
scourge  with  being  Whigs  in  disguise,  or  at  least  mere 
pseudo-Democrats.  He  spoke  every  day  about  three 
hours,  and  then  retired  precipitately  from  the  rostrum  and 
the  place  of  meeting,  and  moved  on  to  the  next  appoint 
ment.  Every  day,  so  soon  as  he  closed  his  long-winded 
harangue,  I  spoke  for  about  thirty  minutes,  and  went  on 
in  pursuit  of  him.  We  never  interchanged  a  syllable  dur 
ing  the  whole  canvass.  Sometimes  we  put  up  at  the  same 
hotel,  and  occasionally  were  even  lodged  in  the  same  room. 
[  suppose  that  we  must  have  severally  delivered  at  least 
one  hundred  speeches.  Governor  Memitt  finally  trans 
formed  his  accustomed  speech  into  a  dream  or  vision,  as 
he  used  to  call  it,  which  he  took  occasion  to  add  to  and 
embellish  with  new  incidents  from  day  to  day,  until  it 
really  became  quite  a  ludicrous  melange,  and  all  at  the  ex 
pense  of  the  u  sleepy  "  candidates  for  the  Senate.  As  he 
poured  forth  mainly  the  same  utterances  on  each  succes 
sive  occasion  of  speaking,  the  colored  boy,  William,  who 
drove  my  buggy,  managed  to  o-et  it  by  heart,  and  he  re 
peated  it  with  well-mimicked  gestures  and  intonation  to 
large  crowds,  whom  he  never  tailed  to  convulse  with 
laughter. 

At  last  the  struggle  closed.  Then  it  became  evident  to 
all  that  McNutt  could  not  possibly  be  elected.  The  peo 
ple  agreed  with  me  that  it  was  not  proper  to  send  him  to 
the  United  States  Senate,  as  a  reward  for  murdering  his 
own  offspring — the  Union  Bank  bonds.  tie  had  man 
aged  so  deeply  to  incense  all  the  other  candidates  arid 
their  friends  by  his  continued  abuse  of  them  that  they 
would  have  preferred  to  aid  in  the  election  of  any  man 
whatever  in  preference  to  this  most  persevering  tormentor. 
I  had  attacked  no  one  during  the  whole  struggle  save 


1-14  (\\SKKT    <>F    15K.MINISCKNTK?. 

McNutt  himself.  The  result,  therefore,  was  not  at  all  to 
he  wondered  at.  When  the  Legislative  Democratic  cau 
cus  met  in  ihe  city  of  Jackson,  in  the  succeeding  Janu 
ary,  McNutt  got  on  the  first  ballot  twenty  votes;  (this 
number  was  never  increased  on  any  succeeding  ballot;)  I 
received  eighteen  votes;  Quit  man,  Thompson,  and  Brown 
each  less  than  this  number.  Gwin  had  withdrawn  be. 
fore  the  balloting  commenced.  My  number  of  votes  was 
increased  on  every  fresh  ballot,  until  at  last  I  received 
every  Democratic  vote  in  the  Legislature  save  one.  In  a 
few  days  thereafter  1  was  chosen  {Senator  in  due  form,  and 
removed  to  a  field  of  action  where  I  should  rejoice  to 
know  that  my  labors  were  at  all  beneficial  to  my  country 
and  the  cause  of  constitutional  liberty. 

This  first  attempt  in  Mississippi  to  obtain  popular  ap 
proval  of  the  fearful  dogma  of  repudiation  was  indeed 
signally  unsuccessful.  But  it  is  due  to  the  truth  of  his 
tory  to  confess  that  the  experiment  thus  essayed  by  Mr. 
McNutt  has  been  much  more  successful  since  when  con 
ducted  by  more  subtle  and  persevering  ministers  of  mis 
chief,  who  in  185;j  were  able  at  last,  under  the  counsel 
and  direction  of  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  to  impress  upon 
the  once  unstained  escutcheon  of  a  gallant  and  noble  Com 
monwealth  a  blot  of  infamy  that  all  the  waters  of  ocean 
can  not  wash  away,  and  which  it  is  nor  in  the  power  of 
all-consuming  time  itself  completely  to  obliterate. 

The  wretched  McNutt,  always  held  to  be  unconquera 
ble  before  this  memorable  struggle,  found  it  difficult  to 
bear  up  under  a  result  which  stood  accompanied  with  cir 
cumstances  so  well  calculated  to  gall  his  sensibilities  and 
mortify  his  pride.  Had  any  man  been  elected  save  him 
who  had  publicly  divulged  the  contents  of  that  confession 
of  Mercer  Byrd  the  discredit  reriected  upon  him  would 
not  have  been  altogether  so  intolerable.  He  was  exceed 
ingly  indisposed  for  a  few  days,  afterward  got  a  little  bet- 


CASKKT    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ter,  but  was  never  the  same  confident  and  blustering  dema 
gogue  lie  had  previously  been.  He  died  about  two  years 
after,  and  the  k"  ruling  passion  "  being  with  him  also 
"strong  in  death,"  he  talked  politics  to  the  last, calling  out, 
as  I  have  been  told,  in  his  last  moments,  fix  his  favorite 
newspaper,  the  Mississipian. 

I  have  all  the  more  readily  consented  to  recite  the  par 
ticulars  above  set  forth  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  I  have 
thought  that  in  the  career  of  this  remarkable  man  the 
seeds  of  wholesome  moral  instruction  might  be  discerned, 
and  that  the  disappointments  which  marked  the  latter 
years  of  his  life  may  have  a  salutary  influence  on  those 
of  the  rising  generation  who  shall  choose  to  meditate  upon 
them.  There  are  certain  names  which  I  hope  will  remain 
forever  imbedded  in  the  recollection  of  our  mercurial,  but 
high-minded,  Southern  people,  as  warnings  against  the  ex 
ceeding  unprofitableness  of  demagogism,  and  thefeaifu' 
dangers  which  wait  upon  its  prevalence.  It  is  really  to  be 
much  desired,  in  my  opinion,  that  the  examples  of  Alex 
ander  Gr.  McNutt,  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  with  the  self-destructive  results  of  an  unscrupu 
lous  and  all -grasping  ambition,  should  be  handed  down  to 
the  latest  posterity. 


r.ASKKT    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXII. 

HON.   ROBERT  J.  WALKER — GEORGE  POINDEXTER  AND  JACKSOX's 
ADMINISTRATION — A  WORTHY  TRIBUTE  TO  W.  W.  CORCORAN. 

[  ought,  perhaps,  long  since  to  have  performed  the  task 
upon  which  I  am  now  entering.  To  no  one  outside  of  his 
own  family  circle  was  the  late  Robert  J.  Walker  better 
known  than  to  the  author  of  the  present  reminiscence. 
My  first  acquaintance  with  him  was  formed  in  the  winter 
of  1830— '31.  He  was  then  the  most  prominent  member 
of  the  bar  in  the  city  of  Natchez,  where  he  had  been  a 
resident  for  some  four  or  five  years.  He  was  a  native  of 
Pennsylvania,  had  graduated,  as  I  have  heard  him  say, 
as  a  doctor  of  medicine  anterior  to  his  commencement  ol 
the  study  of  law,  and  before  he  located  in  Mississippi  he 
had  given  much  attention  to  the  civil  as  well  as  to  the 
common  law,  and  was  said  by  those  quite  competent  to 
judge  of  this  matter  to  be  exceedingly  well  versed  in  both 
these  branches  of  the  jurisprudent  ial  science.  Mr.  Walker 
found,  when  he  became  established  in  Natchez,  his  amia 
ble  and  accomplished  brother,  Duncan  Walker,  in  full 
practice,  and  he  had  an  opportunity  afforded  him  at  once 
of  appearing  as  an  advocate  in  many  cases  of  the  greatest 
magnitude  and  difficulty,  and  in  the  argument  of  these 
soon  became  recognized  as  a  lawyer  of  eminent  learning 
and  ability.  In  a  year  or  two  after  the  opening  of  his 
forensic  career  in  Natchez  three  very  distinguished  mem 
bers  of  the  bar  of  that  city  died:  Mr.  Griffith,  Thomas  B. 
Reed,  and  Robert  II.  Adams.  The  two  last  became  well 
known  as  members  of  the  National  Senate.  Mr.  Reed 
was  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  was  a  in .111  of  .m-xt  r  >:n  n.ind- 
ing  person,  and  was  undoubtedly  a  man  of  much  ability 


CAriKKT    OF    REMINISCENCES.  217 

and  learning,  but  he  was  not  remarkable  for  brilliancy  as 
a  speaker  or  for  scholastic  attainments.  Robert  II.  Adams 
was  born  in  the  county  of  Rockbridge  and  State  of  Vir 
ginia;  he  was  a  cooper  by  trade,  and  had  worked  at  this 
occupation  for  several  years  before  commencing  the  study 
of  the  law.  He  located,  in  the  days  of  his  early  manhood, 
in  the  city  of  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  where  he  very  soon  rose 
to  distinction.  He  afterward  removed  to  the  city  of  Xash- 
ville,  but  did  not  remain  there  long  before  he  determined 
to  migrate  to  iSratche/,  where,  in  five  or  six  years,  he 
became  recognized  as  a  well-informed  and  industrious 

O 

barrister,  and  a  bold,  earnest,  and  energetic  speaker.  Mr. 
Adams  and  Mr.  Walker  were  very  intimate  friends,  and 
a  year  or  two  before  the  decease  of  the  former  these  two 
gentlemen  had  entered  into  an  agreement  to  practice  law 
in  partnership  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  which  they 
were  prevented  from  doing  alone  by  Mr.  Adams'  sudden 
and  unexpected  election  to  the  United  States  Senate  about 
twelve  months  before  his  demise. 

Previous  to  Mr.  Walker's  emigration  from  his  native 
State  lie  had  gained  some  prominence  as  a  politician,  and 
he  claimed,  no  doubt  rightfully,  the  credit  of  having  made 
the  first  speech  in  support  of  General  Jackson  for  the 
Presidency,  some  time  during  the  year  1824. 

When  the  dogma  of  nullification  was  suddenly  broached 
by  the  politicians  of  South  Carolina  in  1832,  Mr.  Walker 
came  forth  at  once,  in  the  public  newspapers  and  elsewhere, 
as  the  stern  and  uncompromising  supporter  of  General 
Jackson's  famous  Union  proclamation,  and  L  remember 
him  then  to  have  sent  forth  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
eiO([uent  addresses  in  support  of  the  cause  which  he  had 
espoused  that  I  have  ever  had  an  opportunity  of  reading. 
When,  afterward,  the  supporters  of  General  Jackson's 
administration  in  the  State  of  Mississippi  made  up  their 
minds  to  do  all  that  might  lie  in  their  power  to  defeat  the 


CASKET    OF    'REMINISCENCES. 

re-election  to  the  National  Senate  of  the  celebrated  (renr^. 
Poindexter,  an  opportunity  was  presented  to  Mr.  Walker 
of  heading  this  important  movement,  which  ho  did  \vith 
singular  address  and  effectiveness.  There  are  some  curious 
particulars  connected  with  this  period  of  the  history  of 
Mississippi  which  many  still  surviving  in  that  State,  no 
doubt,  yet  bear  in  vivid  recollection.  The  enemies *of  the 
Jackson  administration  tendered  to  Mr.  Poindexter  a 
series  of  public  banquets,  at  which  lie  was  expected  to 
address  those  who  might  attend  in  vindication  of  his  own 
course  and  in  tierce  assa-ihnent,  both  of  General  Jackson 
and  the  measures  of  Government  which  he  had  at  that 
time  recommended.  One  of  these  banquets  was  to  be 
spread  in  the  village  of  Raymond,  then  and  now  the  seat 
of  justice  of  the  county  of  Minds.  Some  of  my  political 
friends  had  demanded  ot  me  that  L  should  attend  at  Ray 
mond  on  the  day  fixed  for  the  entertainment  mentioned, 
and  that  I  should  at  the  close  of  Mr.  Poindexter's  address 
proceed  to  respond  thereto,  at  the  court-house,  which  was 
not  far  distant  from  the  stand  erected  for  the  occupancy 
of  this  personage.  This  I  had  consented  to  do,  when 
suddenly  I  received  a  letter  from  my  friend,  Mr.  Walker, 
calling  my  attention  to  a  very  spiteful  and  unjustifiable 
attack  made  by  Mr.  Poindexter  in  the  National  Senate 
upon  his  personal  and  political  character,  and  urging  me 
at  the  same  time  to  allow  him  to  take  my  place  on  the 
occasion  just  referred  to  as  the  answerer  of  Mr.  Poindex- 
ter's  anticipated  speech.  To  this  application  I  promptly 
acceded,  and  invited  Mr.  Walker  to  come  up  from  Natchez 
immediately  for  the  purpose  of  performing  this  duty  of 
patriotism,  and  of  aiding  the  friends  of  the  Administra 
tion  in  the  fierce  and  difficult  political  struggle  which 
was  then  before  us. 

When  the  day  of  conflict  came,  the  Democrats  of  the 
county  attended  in  great .numbers.     Mr.  Poindexter  made 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  219 

liis  expected  speech,  which  was  evidently  very  coldly 
received  by  most  of  those  present  ;  after  which  I  ascended 
a  table  not  far  distant  from  the  stand  from  which  he  had 
held  forth,  and  announced  that  Robert  J.  Walker,  of 
Natchez,  who  was  then  present,  would  immediately  reply 
to  the  address  just  made,  at  the  court-house,  and  invited 
all  in  attendance  to  accompany  me  thither,  which  most  of 
them  did.  Mr.  Walker,  on  being  introduced  to  the  crowd 
assembled,  rose  and  delivered  one  of  the  most  powerful 
political  speeches  I  ever  listened  to,  and  1  immediately 
afterward  offered  a  resolution  inviting  him  to  become  a 
Senatorial  candidate  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Poindexter, 
which  he  consented  to  do  This  speech  of  Mr.  Walker 
was  promptly  published  in  every  part  of  the  State,  and 
produced  a  most  marked  effect  everywhere.  In  a  week 
or  two  this  gentleman  commenced  a  regular  canvass  of 
the  State,  and  spoke  to  large  audiences  in  almost  every 
county  of  Mississippi,  receiving  nearly  everywhere  the 
most  decided  tokens  of  popular  approval.  Almost  every 
day  he  was  assailed  by  some  anti-Jackson  speaker,  and  on 
every  such  occasion  I  defended  him  with  such  ability  as 
I  possessed.  The  struggle  was  protracted,  from  various 
causes,  for  nearly  two  years,  when  at  last  Mr.  Poindexter 
was  defeated  and  Mr.  Walker  returned  to  the  Senate  in 
his  place.  His  career  in  this  illustrious  body  was  one  of 
great  distinction,  with  the  leading  scenes  of  which  the 
whole  country  is  familiar.  His  Senatorial  speeches,  pub 
lished  at  the  time  of  their  delivery  in  the  Congressional 
Globe,  were  evincive  of  great  ability  and  industry,  and 
would  have  done  credit,  as  I  think,  to  almost  any  man 
that  the  country  has  produced.  In  legal  learning,  in 
general  literary  attainments,  in  scholastic  erudition,  and 
in  a  knowledge  of  all  the  more  useful  branches  of  science, 
there  were  but  few  of  his  cotemporaries  who  could  have 
safely  stood  comparison  with  him.  He  was  a  warm-hearted, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

truthful,  and  courageous  gentleman,  a  tender  and  devoted 
husband,  a  dutiful  and  respectful  son,  and  a  most  affec 
tionate  and  pains-taking  father.  In  friendship  he  was 
disinterested,  faithful,  and  self-sacrificing.  In  all  the 
duties  of  a  high-toned  and  expanded  patriotism  no  man 
has  ever  surpassed  him.  Man)-  of  the  most  pleasant  days 
of  my  past  life  were  spent  in  social  intercourse  with  him, 
and  it  is  exceedingly  gratifying  to  me  now  to  remember 
that  I  never  had  the  least  reason  either  to  distrust  his 
friendly  regard  for  me  or  to  question  his  perfect  upright 
ness  and  honor. 

Mr.  Walker  acquired  a  great  and  solid  reputation  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  during  Mr.  1'olk's  administra 
tion,  and  his  management  of  the  financial  concerns  of  the 
Republic  during  the  interesting  and  trying  period  of  the 
Mexican  war  added  greatly  to  his  tame  as  a  statesman, 
and  established  in  his  favor  a  permanent  claim  to  the 
admiration  and  gratitude  of  his  countrymen. 

Mr.  Walker  participated  very  conspicuously  in  all  the 
measures  leading  to  the  recognition  of  Texas  as  an  inde 
pendent  State,  and  to  her  subsequent  admission  into  th>» 
Federal  Union:  and  when  the  capital  of  the  Mexican 
Republic  wras  in  possession  of  our  invading  army,  under 
General  Scott,  he  openly  expressed  the  opinion  that  the 
wisest  policy  which  could  then  be  adopted  by  our  own 
Government  would  be  at  once  to  issue  a  formal  proclama 
tion  of  conquest,  applicable  to  the  whole  Mexican  domain, 
to  be  speedily  followed  up  by  measures  looking  to  the 
opening  of  that  attractive  region  to  our  own  enterprising 
countrymen,  the  establishment  of  post  offices  and  post 
roads,  the  introduction  of  railways,  and  the  organization 
of  lines  of  telegraphic  communication  ;  by  which  means 
he  insisted  all  Mexico  would  be  in  a  few  years  completely 
Americanized,  and  placed  for  the  first  time  in  her  history 
under  the  control  of  a  sound  and  stable  government,  and 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCED.  221 

cease  to  be  the  theater  of  bloody  and  exhausting  wars, 
and  the  dismal  abiding-place  of  civil  disorder  and  social 
anarchy.  Mr.  Walker's  political  sagacity  and  foresight 
were  sometimes  displayed  in  a  truly  wonderful  manner, 
and,  from  my  knowledge  of  his  temper  and  general  views, 
[  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  the  opinign  that  were 
he  now  living  he  would  still  be,  as  he  ever  was,  an  ardent 
advocate  for  the  extension,  by  all  legitimate  and  lawful 
means,  of  our  admirable  civil  institutions  over  all  JSTorth 
America.  Had  his  life  been  prolonged  up  to  the  present 
moment  he  would,  I  am  certain,  have  been  among  the 
foremost  in  urging  the  early  acquisition  of  Cuba,  San 
Domingo,  Jamaica,  Porto  Rico,  and  all  the  other  islands 
belonging  to  the  West  India  group  and  washed  by  the 
waters  of  the  diilf  of  Mexico.  He  would,  I  doubt  not, 
have  seen  that  the  acquisition  of  these  islands  has  been 
rendered  doubly  desirable  in  the  last  few  years  by  the 
recent  amendments  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  since  it  is 
most  apparent  that  under  the  fostering  protection  of  these 
the  colored  inhabitants  of  that  region  would  be  given  a 
sure  guarantee  for  the  perpetual  enjoyment  of  liberty  and 
a  complete  equality  of  civil  rights,  such  as  now  so  happily 
exists  in  our  own  Republic. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  intimate  relations  of 
various  kinds  subsisting  for  many  years  between  Robert 
J.  Walker  and  another  worth}7  citizen  of  this  vicinage 
will  not  feel  any  surprise  at  my  here  subjoining  a  very 
brief  notice  of  one  whom  I  have  more  or  less  known  for 
the  last  fifty  years,  and  for  whose  character,  both  public 
and  private,  I  have  cherished  a  constantly-increasing 
respect  since  the  year  1817.  I  do  not  fear  being  charged 
with  extravagance  in  any  respectable  quarter  when  I 
declare  that  I  know  of  no  man  now  living  upon  this  con 
tinent  more  deserving  to  be  loved  and  respected  as  a  wise 
and  munificent  public  benefactor,  and  as  a  humane  and 


22*2  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

judicious  bestower  of  charity,  in  the  broadest  and  most 
comprehensive  meaning  of  that  word,  than  our  yet  sur 
viving  neighbor  and  fellow-citizen,  William  \Vilson  Cor 
coran.  A  purer,  kinder,  or  more  public-spirited  man  [ 
have  never  known;  and  it'  all  the  great  capitalists  that 
our  country  contains  could  but  be  persuaded  to  imitate 
his  noble  example  our  Republic  would  soon  become  a 
paradise,  and  the  possession  of  wealth,  so  far  from  attract 
ing  envy,  as  it  is  so  often  known  to  do,  and  begetting 
enmity,  would  be  thenceforth  recognized,  and  justly,  as 
only  the  enjoyment  of  the  high  and  sacred  privilege  of 
doing  good,  of  relieving  the  manifold  distresses  of  human 
kind,  and  of  extending  the  happiness  of  our  fellow  crea 
tures  wheresoever  they  may  be  found.  This  would  confer 
more  real  honor  than  all  the  titles  of  nobility  that  the 
aristocrats  of  the  world  have  been  able  to  invent,  and  be 
the  source  of  more  true  glory  than  even  the  winners  of 
great  battles  have  ever  been  able  to  achieve. 

There  is  no  danger  that  the  generations  of  posteritv 
will  forget  the  numerous  but  unostentatious  charities 
which  the  heart  of  Mr.  Corcoran  has  prompted  and  his 
sound  and  discriminating  intellect  has  put  in  operation. 
Numerous  gifted  pens,  I  am  glad  to  know,  have  been 
already  occupied  in  the  specification  of  his  benefactions, 
and  in  the  delineation  of  his  social  and  domestic  virtues, 
and  there  are  solid  and  enduring  monuments  in  our  midst, 
and  in  almost  every  corner  of  this  District,  which  will 
preserve  his  fame  as  a  philanthropist  and  as  a  munificent 
patron  of  the  arts  for  a  thousand  generations  to  come. 
So  long  as  the  national  capital  shall  continue  to  stand  as 
a  token  of  the  power  and  glor}  of  tins  unequaled  Republic, 
or  the  lordly  Potomac  be  seen  to  wash  the  foot  of  that 
beautiful  hill  which  it  occupies  and  adorns,  will  the  warm 
hearted  men  and  women  of  the  land  be  heard  to  breathe 
forth  accents  of  praise  and  gratitude  in  honor  of  one  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  228 

whom,  perhaps,  with  more  justice  might  be  applied  than 
to  any  other  man  now  treading  the  soil  of  this  continent, 
the  glowing  and  beautiful  lines  of  the  renowned  moral 
poet  of  England,  who  thus  sung,  nearly  two  centuries  ago, 
in  praise  of  one  of  his  own  countrymen: 

lint  all  our  praises  why  should  lords  engross? 
Rise,  honest  in  use  !  and  sing  kk  The  Man  of  Ross  I "' 
Pleased  Vaga  echoes  through  her  winding  bounds, 
And  rapid  Severn  hoarse  applause  resounds. 
Who  hung  with  woods  yon  mountain's  sultry  brow? 
From  the  dry  rock  who  bade  the  waters  flow? 
Not  to  the  skies  in  useless  columns  toss'd. 
Or  in  proud  falls  magnificently  lost, 
But  clear  and  artless  pouring  through  the  plain, 
Health  to  the  sick,  and  solace  to  the  .-wain. 
Whose  causeway  parts  the  vale  with  shady  rov  s? 
Whose  seats  the  weary  traveler  lepose? 
>Mio  taught  that  heaven-directed  spire  to  rise? 
••The  Man  of  Ross,  "  each  lisping  babe  replies. 
Behold  the  market-place  with  poor  o'erspread  ! 
"The  Man  of  Ross  "  divides  the  weekly  bread! 
He  feeds  i/on  almahouse,  neat,  but  void  of  state, 
Where  age  and  want  sit  smilimj  at  the  (/ate: 
Him,  portioned  maids,  apprenticed  orphans  blessed, 
The  young  who  labor,  and  the  old  v/ho  rest. 
Is  any  sick?  "The  Man  of  Ross  "  relieves, 
Prescribes,  attends,  the  med'cine  makes  and  gives. 
Is  there  a  variance?  enter  but  this  door, 
Baulked  are  the  courts,  and  contest  is  no  more. 
Despairing  quacks  with  curses  fled  the  place, 
And  vile  attorneys,  now  a  useless  race. 


-24  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXIII. 

GOVERNOR  BROWNLOW — MR.  BENJAMIN. 

In  the  same  desultory  or  "  carptim  "  manner,  as  Sallus- 
tius  Crispns  would  call  it,  I  proceed  further  to  notice  the 
men  and  things  which  have  been  heretofore  present  to  my 
experience. 

There  is  an  individual  living  in  Knoxville,  Tenn., 
whom  I  have  long  and  familiarly  known.  He  and  I  have 
never  belonged  to  the  same  political  party,  and  there  are, 
doubtless,  many  questions  now  more  or  less  agitating 
the  public  mind  upon  which  we  are  not  precisely  in 
harmony.  But  the  mere  ties  of  party  I  have  never  held 
to  be  of  equal  dignity  with  the  obligations  of  moral  duty, 
and  there  has  never  been,  and  I  trust  there  never  will  be, 
a  time  when  I  shall  take  it  for  granted  that  all  who 
agree  with  me  in  political  sentiment  are* necessarily  honest 
and  patriotic,  and  those  who  do  not  thus  agree  with  me 
are  knaves  and  enemies  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  I  have 
lived  long  enough  to  tind  out  that  there  are  good  and  bad 
men  of  all  parties  and  of  all  sects  of  religion  under  the  sun, 
and  that  there  are  not  two  greater  foes  to  virtue  and  the 
general  well-being  of  society  than  the  prejudice  engendered 
by  extreme  political  partisanship  and  the  unreasoning 
religious  bigotry  which  damns  without  mercy  all  the 
members  of  all  Christian  sects  whatever  who  chance  to 
dissent  either  in  regard  to  doctrinal  principles  or  church 
ceremonials  from  the  particular  denomination  with  which 
they  may  have  associated  themselves.  Et  is  currently  as 
serted  among  certain  rather  superficial  persons  that  the 
existence  of  party  dissensions  in  a  republic  like  our  own 
is  a  sort  of  necessary  evil.  I  have  never  so  thought, 


CASKET    OF    RBMINISCBNCK8,  ZZO 

though  I  am  quite  aware  that  a  number  of  causes  may  be 
of  power  to  produce  some  contrariety  of  views  upon 
almost  any  question  which  could  be  mentioned.  In  such 
a  high  condition  of  social  culture  as  it  is  at  least  easy  to 
imagine,  and  in  the  absence  of  all  those  demoralizing  in 
fluences  which  war  of  every  kind  is  sure  to  call  into 
being,  I  have  ever  believed  that  though  absolute  uniform 
ity  of  sentiment  is  not  to  be  confidently  anticipated,  yet 
that  everything  in  the  form  of  an  over-close  party 
organization,  accompanied  as  it  must  ever  be  by  the 
blind  and  barbarizingantagonisms  of  faction— selfishly  and 
unscrupulously  seeking  the  spoils  of  office,  or  to  lay  hold 
upon  the  exterior  symbols  of  political  power  in  order  to 
the  gratification  of  a  low  and  huckstering  ambition — - 
might  as  easily  be  avoided  as  many  other  mischiefs  which 
are  known  to  vanish  as  society  advances  in  refinement  and 
intelligence.  I  am  yet  to  witness  or  to  hear  of  the  firs^ 
signal  party  triumph  that  was  not  in  the  sequel  marked 
with  gross  abuses  of  power  and  with  deeds  of  every  de 
scription  calculated  to  awaken  feelings  of  horror  and 
disgust  in  upright  and  elevated  minds;  and  he  lias  surely 
read  the  pages  of  history  with  little  profit  who  is  not 
aware  that  all  great  and  widely  beneficial  reforms  in 
government  and  laws  have  been  brought  about,  not  by 
the  exclusive  instrumentality  of  any  one  political  faction, 
fervidly  exultant  over  some  recently-won  party  victory, 
but  by  the  cool  and  steady  co-operation  of  liberal-minded 
and  enlightened  patriots,  who,  without  regard  to  existing 
party  designations,  have  been  able  to  rise  up  for  the  time 
above  the  delusory  and  fatal  guidance  of  extreme  party 
zealotry,  and  the  trickish  subtleties  of  a  low-bred,  vulgar, 
and  mischief-spreading  demagoguism.  It  was  the  sage 
and  brotherly  union  of  highly-endowed  patriotic  tories 
with  persons  of  a  similar  moral  stamp,  previously  recog 
nized  as  belonging  to  the  Whig  ranks,  to  which  Eng- 

15K 


^26  CASkEt    OF    REMINISCENCES* 

land  is  undeniably  indebted  for  the  civic  revolution  of 
168S,  the  more  recent  repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  for  Catholic 
emancipation,  and  for  all  the  invaluable  ameliorations 
which  have  been  effected  in  our  own  time  in  her  criminal 
code  and  in  her  rules  of  judicial  procedure.  So  in  our 
own  country,  even  our  intelligent  schoolboys  know  that 
similar  results  were  brought  about  by  almost  precisely 
similar  means  in  1819,  in  1831,  in  1850,  and  in  1861,  or 
rather  between  that  noted  year  and  the  year  1865.  How 
how  much  in  error,  then,  must  those  be  who  seek  to  per 
petuate  enmities  of  a  partisan  cast  for  purposes  altogether 
distinct  from  the  real  welfare  of  the  Republic,  or  who 
struggle  to  keep  in  existence  the  mere  hull  of  a  political 
party  after  all  the  great  ends  of  its  original  mission  have 
been  fully  accomplished,  and  when  even  its  distinctive 
corporate  cognomen  has  become  suggestive  only  of  past 
transactions,  of  a  comparatively  recent  date,  deeply  dishon 
oring  to  all  directly  concerned  therein,  and  little  less  dis 
creditable  to  those  who  have  thoughtlessly  yielded  their 
momentary  countenance  and  support  to  these  proceedings 
while  in  process  of  enactment,  and  to  their  known  projec 
tors  or  instigators. 

These  general  remarks,  which  may  seem  at  first  to  some 
to  be  a  little  out  of  place  here,  will  at  least  serve  as  an  in 
troduction  to  what  I  have  to  say  in  reference  to  the 
worthy  citizen  of  my  own  State  who  has  been  already  al 
luded  to. 

The  Hon.  William  G.  Brownlow  is  undoubtedly  one  of 
the  most  marked  and  peculiar  charac  ters  of  the  present 
age.  I  speak  of  what  I  am  sure  I  know  perfectly  when  I 
assert  that  there  is  not  a  man  to  be  found  on  the  terra 
firma  of  America  more  honest,  more  truthful,  or  kinder 
hearted  than  the  personage  just  mentioned.  Little  do 
they  know  of  the  graces  which  adorn  his  character,  or  of 
the  generous  qualities  of  his  nature,  who  judge  of  him 


CASKET    Of'    REMINISCENCES.  22" 

alone  by  the  terrible  ful  mi  nations  which  sometimes  are 
seen  to  flash  from  his  gifted  and  all-excoriating  pen.  lie 
is  certainly  the  most  potential  castigator  of  impertinence 
or  folly  that  the  country  now  knows,  and  he  who  ventures 
to  assail  him  had  far  better  rouse  the  fury  of  the  fret 
ted  porcupine.  It  is  certain  that  all  who  are  ambitious 
of  having  collision  with  him  would  act  with  commenda 
ble  prudence,  ere  they  do  so,  to  put  there  own  house  in 
order;  for  nothing  is  more  certain  than  if  they  have  left  a 
cranny  open  anywhere  he  will  find  it  out  and  penetrate 
it,  and  leave  such  marks  of  his  destructive  access  as  neither 
time  nor  the  circumstances  of  personal  good  fortune  will 
have  power  to  obliterate.  Mr.  Brownlovv  is  no  longer  a 
speaker  of  speeches  in  the  accustomed  sense  of  that  word; 
but  what  he  writes  of  men  and  things  is  always  read,  and 
he  may  be  well  said  to  possess  in  an  eminent  degree  that 
sort  of  eloquence  which  was  attributed  to  one  of  old,  who 
was  said  "to  leave  stings  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers." 
His  mind  is  by  nature  vigorous,  agile,  and  astute  to  a  de 
gree  unsurpassed  by  any  of  his  cotemporaries.  He  well 
understands  the  genus  homo,  both  in  the  abstract  and  in  the 
concrete;  yet  he  is  as  far  from  everything  approaching  to 
misa.nthropy  as  any  human  being  could  possibly  be.  He 
possesses,  and  in  a  form  perfectly  ready  for  immediate  use, 
the  most  particular  and  precise  knowledge  of  the  charac 
ter  and  history  of  every  man  of  the  least  note  in  this 
country  that  the  last  half  century  has  brought  to  view. 
He  is,  in  as  high  a  degree  as  any  man  I  have  at  any  time 
known,  an  inflexible  devotee  to  principle,  though  he  is 
not  weak  enough  to  pride  himself  upon  having  been  abso 
lutely  consistent  in  regard  to  mere  trivialities,  or  of  those 
of  a  non-essential  character.  He  has  unquestionably  com 
mitted  errors,  and  these,  when  he  has  found  them  out,  he 
has  been  always  both  brave  and  honest  enough  to  confess. 
He  is  certainly  ever  true  to  the  monitions  of  his  own  con- 


I^S  <  ASIvKT    OF    l 

science,  and  lie  would  therefore  be  indeed  a  harsh  and 
illiberal  critic-  who  would  not  make  prompt  allowance  for 
mistakes  committed  by  such  an  individual.  He  was, 
some  years  ago,  one  of  the  boldest  and  most  powerful 
champions  and  defenders  that  the  slaveholding  interest  of 
the  South  has  ever  yet  boasted,  and  so  he  continued  to  be 
as  long  as  he  regarded  the  attacks  made  upon  that  sys 
tem  as  instigated  by  a  blind  and  unreasoning  fanaticism, 
or  as  originating  in  dernagoguical  ambition,  seeking  local 
popularity  and  political  advancement  at  the  expense  of 
the  peace  and  happiness  of  the  Republic.  When  he  after 
ward  found  the  slaveholding  system  of  the  South  seized 
upon  by  the  hare-brained  fanatics  of  the  sunny  region  in 
which  he  himself  resided,  for  the  purpose  of  bursting 
asunder  the  bonds  of  the  Union  and  building  up  for  the 
benefit  of  a  few  designing  aspirants  a  separate  and  inde 
pendent  republic — soon  to  eventuate,  if  allowed  to  have 
its  natural  progress,  in  an  irresponsible  military  despo 
tism —  he  promptly  armed  himself  for  this  new  contest, 
and  eventually  consented  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  system 
which  he  had  once  so  eloquently  and  heroically  defended, 
upon  the  altar  of  his  country's  tranquillity  and  repose.  In 
the  early  period  of  the  recent  struggle  for  the  establish 
ment  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  he  was  made  the  vic 
tim  of  lawless  violence  under  the  special  inspiration  of 
the  War  Department  at  Richmond,  in  which  the  infamous 
Judah  P.  Benjamin  then  [(resided.  He  was  ruthlessly 
torn  from  the  society  of  his  family,  deprived  of  his  liberty, 
and  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  indignities  on  account  of  his 
daring  to  give  free  and  courteous  expression  to  his  opin 
ions  as  a  lover  of  the  Union  and  as  a  veritable  selT-devot- 
hi£  patriot.  Such  was  the  cruel  maltreatment  which  he 
received  that  his  physical  constitution  was  completely 
broken  down,  and  his  bodily  health  irretrievably  ruined. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  gratifying  reminiscences' of  my  life 


CASKET    OK    REMINISCENCES.  220 

that,  though  myself  inveigled  at  the  time  in  the  Confed 
erate  meshes,  L  openly  and  earnestly  protested  against  this 
unjust  and  ruffianly  harrassment  of  one  whom  I  greatly 
loved  and  honored,  despite  our  differences  of  opinion 
touching  the  matters  then  in  progress.  Lt  is  almost  equally 
gratifying  to  me  to  know  that  when  1  was  in  a  state  of 
constrained  exile  upon  a  foreign  shore  Mr.  BrownlowV 
most  strenuous  efforts  in  my  behalf  were  made  without 
my  solicitation,  and  even  without  my  knowledge.  I  am 
confident  that  no  suffering  Confederate  in  Tennessee  ever 
asked  Mr.  Brownlow's  kindly  interposition  in  his  own 
behalf  with  the  Government  at  Washington  who  was  re- 

O 

fused  it.  I  remember  that  in  the  very  summer  of  my  own 
return  home,  that  is  to  say,  in  18H5, 1  drew  up  a  petition, 
addressed  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  praying 
the  liberation  of  Jetf.  Davis  and  Alexander  Stephens  from 
imprisonment.  I  got  it  subscribed  by  a  number  of  citi 
zens,  and  took  it  to  Mr.  Brownlow,  then  (Governor  of 
Tennessee,  for  his  signature. 

Fie  received  me  very  graciously;  said  the  question  was 
one  of  some  delicacy  and  perplexity,  and  he  would,  with 
my  consent,  take  my  petition  under  consideration  for  a 
few  days,  in  his  own  characteristic  style  saying:  ik  I  shall 
have  to  fast  and  pray  over  this  application  ;  yes,  Governor. 
I  shall  have  to  fast  and  pray  over  it! v  If  he  did  not  sub 
scribe  the  paper  at  once,  as  I  greatly  wished  him  to  do,  no 
one  could  convince  me  tbat  his  motives  for  refusing  to  do 
so  were  otherwise  than  unright  and  patriotic. 

Mr.  Brownlow  is  no  longer  Governor  of  Tennessee. 
While  he  was  in  that  high  and  responsible  office  no  one 
ever  ranked  me  among  his  political  supporters;  though  I 
should  be  ashamed  to  remember  now  tliat  I  have  ever  for 
a  moment  distrusted  his  integrity  or  seriously  called  in 
question  his  capacity.  I  can  now  say  with  absolute  sin 
cerity  what  all  Tennessee,  I  am  sure,  will  one  day  acknowl- 


280  CASKET    i>K    KKMIMSCKNOKS. 

edge,  that  the  noble  State  which  holds  in  her  bosom  the 
ashes  of  a  Jackson,  a  Polk,  and  a  Bell,  has  seldom,  if  ever, 
been  blessed  with  an  executive  chief  of  greater  ability 
than  Mr.  Brownlow,  and  certainly  with  not  a  single  one 
more  unright  and  well-intentioned  than  himself.  I  regret 
to  have  to  say,  in  conclusion,  that  some  startlingly  cor 
rupt  and  profligate  transactions  recently  reported  to  me 
from  the  capital  of  Tennessee  have  constrained  me  pain 
fully  to  regret  that,  some  such  an  incorruptible  and  in 
domitable  man  as  the  much  reviled  William  G.  Brownlow 
is  not  now  at  the  governmental  helm  of  that  unfortunate 
but  time-honored  Commonwealth,  where  organized  rob 
bery,  under  the  once  venerated  name  of  Democracy,  has 
been  notoriously  allowed  to  seat  itself  among  the  money 
bags  of  the  State  treasury,  in  order  to  satiate,  at  leisure, 
its  rapacious  maw  with  that  which  has  been  extracted 
from  the  blood  and  sweat  of  an  industrious,  high-minded, 
but  too  confiding  people. 

Some  of  mine  ancient  friends  in  Tennessee  will  now  un 
derstand  that  of  which  I  warned  them  two  years  a^o, 
when  certain  plausible,  fair-spoken  gentlemen  about  their 
'State  Capitol  were  opposing  so  fiercely  and  uncivilly  the 
creation  of  a  third  party  in  Tennessee — to  be  composed  of 
the  best  materials  of  the  two  old  ones — and  perceive  what 
objects  these  ingenious  gentlemen  then  had  in  view,  and 
will,  I  hope, guard  against  any  similar  attempt  to  deceive 
them  from  the  same  quarter.  Surely  after  this  astound 
ing  development  few  citizens  of  Tennessee  will  continue 
to  doubt  the  imperious  necessity  there  existing  that  old 
and  worn-cfut  party  names  should  be  forever  given  up; 
that  the  rotten  and  tottering  organization  still  called 
Democratic,  but  which  really  has  not  now  one  particle  of 
healthful  and  useful  vitality,  and  which  has  been,  by  de 
ceitful  specifics  of  various  kinds,  retained  upon  the  arena 
for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  a  few  heartless  and  uncultured 


CASKET    OK    RKMINISCKNOKS.  231 

demagogues,  should  be  at  once  allowed  to  sink  into  the 
grave  which  has  been  for  full  ten  years  yawning  to  receive 
it;  after  which  all  the  real  friends  of  order  and  progress 
may  become,  there  as  elsewhere,  cordially  united  in  an 
effort  to  cicatrize  all  the  wounds  of  the  past,  and  to  renew 
those  scenes  of  sweet  tranquillity  and  brotherhood  in 
which  our  honored  fathers,  in  the  olden  time,  once  so  re 
joicingly  participated. 


CASKET    n       RKMINISCKNCKS. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXLV. 

THK  CONFEDERATE  C  A  BINET— JUDAH  P.  BENJAMIN'S  CAREER— 
THE  HAMPTON  ROADS  CONFERENCE  AND  THE  MEETING  AT  THE 
AFRICAN  CHURCH. 

L  have  thought  it  best  to  reserve  certain  particulars 
specified  in  the  present  number  for  this  perhaps  last  of  the 
reminiscences  of  the  past  which  I  shall  now  write.  The 
facts  which  will  be  narrated  in  the  paragraphs  which  follow 
have  to  some  extent  been  alluded  to  before,  but  not  fully 
set  forth. 

[  was  not  a  little  amused  the  other  day  at  learning 
from  the  lips  ot  a  very  distinguished  citizen  of  Maryland 
that  ex-Senator  Wigfall,  now,  as  I  learn,  a  resident  of  the 
neighboring  city  of  Baltimore,  is  much  in  the  habit  of 
saying  that  there  are  no  two  men  living  who  could  have 
brought  about  the  defeat  of  the  Confederate  cause  save 
Jeff.  Davis  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin.  Mr.  \Viiifallis  un 
doubtedly  himself  a  man  of  an  active  and  vigorous  intel 
lect,  and  of  a  singularly  enterprising  spirit,  and  it  is  hut 
due  to  him  to  say  that,  while  occupying  a  seat  in  the  Con 
federate  Senate,  he  manifested  on  many  occasions  a  sterling 
independence  of  character,  and  yielded  a  consistent  support 
of  his  own  avowed  principles,  calculated  to  secure  to  him 
the  esteem  and  confidence  of  many  who  were  themselves 
very  far  from  concurring  in  all  his  extreme  political  opin 
ions.  That  he  placed  a  proper  estimate  upon  Mr.  Davis 
and  Mr.  Benjamin  I  shall  readily  acknowledge;  but  1 
must  be  permitted  to  doubt  whether  any  abilities  or  vir 
tues  in  the  leaders  of  the  Confederate  movement  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  secure  the  object  sought  to  be  at- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCE.  "233 

Gained, and  I  am  very  confident, for  reasons  already  given 
by  me,  that  the  most  complete  success  of  the  rebellion 
would  have  been  signally  ruinous  and  dishonoring  to  the 
Southern  States  and  people.  I  have  no  inclination  to  de 
scant  further  now  upon  this  painful  topic.  The  day  is 
very  far  distant,  I  am  sure,  when  any  such  injudicious  ex 
periment  as  the  attempt  to  establish  a  separate  Southern 
republic  will  be  again  essayed;  and  the  sad  experience  of 
the  past  will  be  very  likely  to  prevent  those  who  have  suf 
fered  so  grievoush  from  the  shortcomings  and  gross  dere 
lictions  of  Messrs.  Davis,  Benjamin,  and  their  close  ally, 
Mr  Hunter,  of  Virginia,  from  intrusting  to  three  individ 
uals  of  precisely  such  attributes  and  qualifications  as  they 
have  heretofore  exhibited  the  lead  in  any  movement  what 
ever  of  great  national  importance. 

After  all  that  has  been  heretofore  published  by  me  no 
one,  I  am  sure,  will  be  at  all  surprised  that  almost  as  soon 
as  I  reached  liichmond,  in  the  winter  of  18(32-'3,  I  felt 
called  upon  to  initiate  a  struggle  for  the  reformation  of 
Mr.  Davis  strangely-constituted  Cabinet.  Every  honor 
able  effort  of  which  I  was  capable  was  made  for  the  official 
displacement  of  Mr.  Benjamin,  Mr.  Mallory,  Mr.  Secldon, 
Mr.  Memminger,  and  Mr.  Northrop,  the  Confederate  Com 
missary  General.  After  a  warm  and  long-continued  strug 
gle  Mr.  Mallory  was  able  to  secure  impunity  at  the  hands 
of  Congress  for  his  many  malfeasances  and  almost  in 
numerable  blunders.  Mr.  Benjamin's  renommation  by 
Mr.  Davis  for  the  Department  of  War  was  defeated  in  the 
Confederate  Senate,  but  this,  as  it  chanced  to  turn  out, 
was  only  equivalent  to  "kicking  him  up  stairs,"  as  is 
known  to  have  been  the  case  in  a  certain  noted  instance 
in  English  history;  for  on  Mr.  Davis"  nomination  of  him 
afterward  for  Secretary  of  State  the  Confederate  Senate 
was  persuaded  to  confirm  him — mainly,  as  one  may  rea 
sonably  conjecture,  because  of  its  being  known  that  Mr. 


2#4  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Davis  needed  constantly  the  aid  of  a  facile  and  polished 
writer  in  the  preparation  of  his  messages  and  other  im 
portant  official  documents.  After  an  earnest  and  long- 
continued  effort  I  procured  at  last  such  a.  declaration  from 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  want  of  confidence  in  Mr. 
Meniminger  as  compelled  his  special  friends  in  that  body 
to  engage  for  him  that  if  I  would  not  press  my  resolution 
to  a  final  vote  he  would  resign  immediately  after  the  close 
of  the  session  of  Congress  then  in  progress.  Mr.  Seddon, 
against  whom  L  originated  proceedings  equally  hostile, 
was  able  to  prolong  his  official  life  for  sonic  months  by 
reason  alone  of  the  shameful  inaction  of  the  special  com 
mittee  to  whom  my  resolution  of  inquiry  in  his  case  had 
been  referred  to  report  the  deeply  dishonoring  facts  which 
had  been  fully  established  against  him.  But  his  official 
head  at  last  underwent  the  process  of  amputation  with 
something  like  universal  consent.  Mr.  Northrop,  being  a 
special  favorite  of  Mr.  Davis,  was  able  to  hang  on  yet  a 
little  longer  before  Congress  at  last  united  in  demanding 
his  removal.  Benjamin  remained  in  the  Department  of 
State  practicing  every  sort  of  enormity  up  to  the  moment 
of  Mr.  Davis'  noted  hegim  from  Richmond,  and  then  these 
two  great  State  culprits  fled  together,  leaving  orders  be 
hind  them  for  the  immediate  burning  of  Richmond. 

Before  this  occurrence,  though,  as  has  been  already 
heretofore  mentioned,  the  two  houses  of  the  Confederate 
Congress,  having  at  last  become  thoroughly  satisfied  of 
Mr.  Davis'  utter  incornpetency,  had  demanded  in  form 
that  he  should  at  once  surrender  all  control  of  the  armies 
of  the  Confederacy  into  the  hands  of  that  upright  and 
able  commander  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  to  which  official 
degradation  Mr.  Davis,  though  manifesting  at  the  same 
time  the  greatest  reluctance,  was  absolutely  compelled  to 
submit. 

About  ten  or  twelve  days  before  this  last  transaction  I 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  285 

left  Richmond;  not,  though,  before  making  every  possible 
effort  to  get  Congress  to  adopt  a  resolution  advising  Mr. 
Davis  to  make  peace  with  the  Government  at  Washing 
ton  upon  the  very  just  and  liberal  terms  which  it  was 
well  known  to  us  that  President  Lincoln  was  then  willing 
to  accord. 

I  will  pause  in  the  recital  which  has  been  commenced 
for  a  moment  or  two  only,  in  order  to  put  on  record  here 
in  a  more  particular  manner  certain  matters  in  reference 
to  which  posterity  will  he  likely  to  feel  a  little  curious. 
Mr.  .Benjamin  has  been  already  more  or  less  referred  to  in 
terms  of  merited  reprobation  ;  but  there  are  well-known 
facts  in  this  man's  history  which  should  have  always  pre 
cluded  him  from  official  employment,  even  of  the  lowest 
grade.  lie  undeniably  disgraced  himself  in  a  notorious 
case  of  meutn  and  tuHM.,  causa  pecuhicB^  before  he  left  col 
lege.  His  whole  career  in  Louisiana  had  been  hideously 
marked  with  dishonesty  and  corruption.  His  known 
participancy  in  the  famous  Houttias  fraud,  while  a  mem 
ber  of  the  United  States  Senate,  by  which  Mr.  Slidell  and 
other  associates  in  wickedness  by  a  shameful  act  of  legis 
lative  legerdemain  on  the  last  night  of  a  session  of  Con 
gress,  got  passed  through  both  houses  of  the  National 
Legislature  an  amendment  to  a  bill  there  pending,  (the 
effect  of  which,  had  it  not  been  afterward  set  aside  by  the 
action  of  Congress  during  the  early  days  of  its  next  ses 
sion,  would  have  been  to  deprive  several  hundred  citizens 
of  Louisiana  of  their  cherished  homes,)  was  fully  exposed 
at  the  time  in  the  columns  of  the  National  Intelligencer  by 
that  intelligent  and  upright  gentleman,  the  Hon.  Henry 
Johnson,  and  therefore  needs  no  further  explanation  here. 
This  man  Benjamin  was  notoriously  occupied  almost 
every  night  during  his  stay  in  Richmond  in  betting  at 
faro,  and  on  several  occasions  while  thus  disreputably  en 
gaged  is  reported  to  have  owed  his  escape  from  the  vigi- 


-  I'ASKKT    OF    KKMINISCKNCES. 

lance  of  the  officers  of  the  lii\v  ulonc  to  his  prompt  dex 
terity  in  leaping  from  the  back-doors  of  the  gambling- 
hells,  where  he  was  thus  seeking  the  recreation  of  his 
faculties.  These,  with  many  other  particulars  ot  a  simi 
lar  stamp,  were  openly  depictured  hy  me  in  the  legislative 
body  of  which  I  was  a  member;  in  proof  of  which  I  shall 
venture  to  insert  an  extract  here  from  "  Pollard's  First 
Year  of  the  War,"  which,  though  it  may  he  justly  thought 
to  commend  me  far  beyond  my  merits,  will  supply  evi 
dence  that  what  I  am  now  saying  ahout  the  official  mal- 
conduct  of  the  person  to  whom  I  have  heen  alluding  is 
not  now  for  the  first  time  uttered  hy  me.  These  are  the 
words  of  Mr.  Pollard  : 

There  was  but  little  opposition  in  Congress  to  President  Davis,  hut 
there  was  some  which  took  the  direction  of  his  Cabinet,  and  this  oppo 
sition  was  represented  by  Mr.  Foote,  of  Tennessee — a  man  of  acknowl 
edged  ability  and  many  virtues  of  character,  who  had  re-entered  upon 
the  political  stage  after  a  public  life  which,  however  much  it  lacked  in 
the  cheap  merit  of  political  consistency,  had  been  adorned  by  displays 
of  wonderful  intellect  and  great  political  genius.  Mr.  Foote  was  not  a 
man  to  be  deterred  from  speaking  the  truth  ;  his  quickness  to  res.-nt- 
ment.  and  his  chivalry,  which,  somewhat  Quixotic.  wa>  founded  in  the 
most  noble  and  delicate  sense  of  honor,  made  those  who  would  have 
bullied  or  silenced  a  weaker  person  stand  in  awe  of  him.  A  man  ni' 
such  temper  WHS  not  likel}'  to  stint  words  in  assailing  an  opponent,  and 
III-  sharp  declamation  in  Congress,  his  searching  comments,  and  hi- 
great  powers  of  sarcasm,  used  upon  such  men  as  Mallory,  Benjamin. 
and  linger,  were  the  only  relief  of  the  dullness  of  the  Congress,  and 
the  only  historical  features  of  its  debates. 

I  do  not  wish  now  to  expatiate  upon  this  nauseating 
theme;  hut,  in  order  to  present  Mr.  Benjamin  in  the 
fiendish  character  which  lie  so  consistently  sustained  dur 
ing  the  whole  course  of  the  rebellion,  I  shall  here  insert 
part  of  a  well-known  order  which  emanated  from  him  as 
Secretary  of  War  on  the  2~>th  of  November.  18U1,  ad 
dressed  to  Colonel  W.  B.  Wood  : 

SlK  :   Your  report  of  the  20th  instant  i-  received,  and  I  now  proceed 


CASKET    OK    REMINISCENCES.  ZO  < 

to  give  you  the  desired  instruction  in  rel;ition  to  the  prisoners  of  war 
taken  by  you  among'  the  traitors  of  East  Tennessee  : 

First.  All  such  as  can  be  identified  in  having'  been  engaged  in  bridge- 
burning  are  to  be  tried  summarily  by  drum-head  court-martial,  and  if 
found  guilty,  executed  on  the  spot  by  hanging.  //  vonl'l  />?  well  fo 
Ivare  their  bodies  hanging  in.  the  vicinity  of  the  burned  bridges^  «&c. 

This  infernal  net  of  Mr.  Benjamin  needs  no  comment. 
He  is  a  man  of  undoubted  ability  and  learning.  His  voice 
is  as  dulcet  and  mellifluous;  as  that  of  the  nightingale. 
He  wears  almost  perpetually  upon  his  visage  a  smile  as 
bland  and  insinuating  as  that  which  may  be  supposed  .to 
have  sat  upon  the  face  of  Judas  Iscariot  when  he  was  be 
traying  the  Saviour  of  the  world  with  a  kiss.  After  per 
petrating  his  heartless  schemes  of  mischief  he  is  repre 
sented  by  those  familiar  with  his  secret  hours  of  relaxation 
to  have  been  repeatedly  heard  to  chuckle  like  Qnilp  in 
the  " Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  as  delineated  by  the  graphic 
pen  of  Dickens,  over  similar  achievements  ;  and  the  de 
scription  of  his  grotesque  person  is,  by  reason  of  the  some 
what  dwartish  yet  bulky  frame  attributed  to  him,  amus 
ingly  applicable  to  the  late  Secretary  of  State  of  the  so- 
called  Confederate  States  of  America. 

.Now,  as  this  man  had  the  fortune  to  be  such  a  special 
favorite  of  Messrs.  Davis  and  Hunter  as  to  have  been  se 
lected  by  his  cunning  co-plotters  in  mischief  to  make  the 
opening  speech  to  the  crowd  assembled  at  the  African 
Church  in  Richmond  for  the  purpose  of  being  editicd 
touching  the  somber  mysteries  of  the  famed  Hampton 
Roads  negotiation,  it  has  been  thought  not  amiss  to  let 
the  world  know  who  and  what  he  has  heretofore  been  in 
this  world  of  sorrow  and  care. 

At  this  same  meeting  Mr.  Hunter  is  reported  to  have 
presided.  Me  did  not,  as  we  are  told,  himself  address  the 
assemblage.  This  would  not  at  all  have  suited  the  pur 
pose  desired  to  be  accomplished.  Had  he  done  so  he 
would  have  been  compelled  by  the  natural  curiosity  of 


CASKET    OK    RKMINISCRNCKS. 

those  in  attendance  to  answer  sundry  questions  relating 
to  what  had  actually  occurred  at  Hampton  Roads,  which 
would  have  imposed  upon  him  the  necessity  of  revealing 
all  that  he  knew,  or  of  telling  a  downright  falsehood. 
For  neither  of  these  was  he  quite  prepared ;  he  preferred 
the  device  so  well  known  to  trickish  political  demagogues 
under  the  name  of  suppressio  vert.  It  was  announced 
from  the  chair,  as  I  learn,  that  no  one  would  be  expected 
to  speak  on  this  occasion  but  those  \vhose  names  would 
be  called  in  succession  by  the  moderator  of  the  meeting. 
Mr.  Benjamin  now  came  forward,  and  made  the  most 
guileful  and  plausible  address  which  he  was  capable  of 
providing,  in  which  those  present  were  told,  in  most  hon 
eyed  and  pathetic  accents,  that  Mr.  Davis  was  solicitous, 
above  all  living  men,  for  peace,  and  that  with  a  view  to 
attaining  this  object  he  had  dispatched  three  commission 
ers  to  meet  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward,  one  of  whom, 
he  said,  was  Mr.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  who,  being  known 
by  Mr.  Davis  to  entertain  the  opinion  that  a  just  and  lion- 
or,able  peace  was  attainable,  had  been  given  a  place  on 
the  commission,  in  order  that  a  fair  experiment  on  this 
subject  should  be  made ;  but  alas !  alas !  and  again  alas  1 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward  had  been  both  found  to  be 
inflexibly  bent  upon  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  had 
fiercely  demanded  of  the  Confederates  States  and  people 
an  unconditional  submission.  Whether  he  shed  tears  on 
this  occasion  over  the  cruel  disappointment  of  Mr.  Davis' 
ardently-cherished  wishes  for  peace  I  am  not  precisely  in 
formed.  After  this  siren  song  of  Mr.  Benjamin  had  been 
thus  winningly  sung,  it  was  easy  for  Mr.  Davis  himself 
to  come  forward  and  declare  that  since  they  were  now 
forced  to  choose  between  unconditional  submission  and  a 
continued  prosecution  of  the  war,  he  was  decidedly  for  the 
latter;  and  to  get  those  whom  he  addressed,  and  who 
were  kept  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the  real  facts  that  had 


CASKET    Otf   REMINISCENCES.  239 

just  been  taking  place  on  the  steamer  in  Hampton  Roads, 
to  adopt  the  bold  and  sanguinary  resolutions  which  were 
now  presented  for  their  consideration. 

During  the  three  or  four  hours  which  were  spent  at  the 
African  Church  not  a  word  was  spoken  by  any  one  touch 
ing  Mr.  Lincoln's  amiable  and  conciliatory  demea'nor  at 
Hampton  Roads  ;  not  a  word  about  the  four  hundred  mil 
lions  which  had  been  virtually  tendered  the  slaveholding 
people  of  the  South  as  a  recompense  for  the  slaves  they 
had  lost ;  not  a  word  was  said  about  the  magnanimous 
offer  of  amnesty  to  the  whole  people  of  the  South  ;  not  a 
word  in  reference  to  the  manly  explanation  given  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  proclamation  of  freedom  to  the  colored  population 
of  the  South,  favorable,  as  was  that  explanation,  to  the  slave- 
holding  people  of  the  South.  Mr.  Stephens,  when  he  wrote 
his  famous  book  on  the  war,  deemed  it  necessary  to  state 
the  facts  just  referred  to  at  great  length  ;  why  did  not  Mr. 
Hunter,  as  chairman  of  this  Richmond  meeting,  do  the 
same  thing?  Why  did  not  Mr.  Davis  make,  at  that  time, 
an  exposition  of  the  whole  truth  of  the  case  to  those  who 
had  flocked  to  the  African  Church  in  order  to  learn  the 
exact  condition  of  public  affairs,  and  ascertain  what 
chance  yet  existed  of  the  early  termination  of  this  wast 
ing  and  bloody  conflict  ?  Why  were  not  Judge  Campbell 
and  Mr.  Stephens  invited  to  state  in  the  hearing  of  those 
who  had  convened  all  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward 
had  said  and  done  at  the  Hampton  Roads '(  Why  was  it 
not  stated,  as  Mr.  Stephens  has  done  in  his  book,  what  a 
noble  and  magnanimous  desire  General  Grant  had  ex 
hibited  for  peace  without  any  more  shedding  of  fraternal 
blood,  and  of  the  disappointment  and  chagrin  he  had  evi. 
denced  at  hearing  that  the  negotiations  for  peace  had 
failed  \  Why  were  not  all  these  important  particulars 
frankly  disclosed  to  the  Confederate  Congress?  Why 
were  not  the  citizens  of  the  South,  whether  in  the  army 


lM:0  CASKKT    OK    REMINISCENCES. 

or  at  their  own  homes,  allowed  to  know  what  a  goldep 
opportunity  was  now  open  to  them  of  being  restored  once 
more  to  the  ineffable  blessings  of  peace  and  to  the  pater 
nal  protection  of  the  noble  Government  upon  which  they 
had  been  in  an  evil  hour  persuaded  to  commence  so  cause 
less  and  unprovoked  a  war  \ 

It  will  not  do  for  these  gigantic  wrong-doers  to  plead 
now  in  their  defense  that  Mr.  Lincoln  made  to  the  Con 
federate  commissioners  no  formal  tender  of  peace.  This, 
of  course,  it  was  impossible  to  do  without  impliedly  recog 
nizing  the  independence  of  the  Southern  States,  which  it 
was  altogether  out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  power  to  grant  had 
he  been  ever  so  much  disposed  to  do  so.  I  insisr,  as  I 
have  always  insisted, and  asall  men  of  intelligence  every 
where  will  be  soon  found  to  admit,  that  the  artful,  secre 
tive,  and  perfidious  conduct  of  Mr.  Davis,  Mr.  Hunter, 
and  Mr.  Benjamin,  in  concealing  from  the  people  of  the 
generous  and  patriotic  South  the  liberal  and  humane  offers 
of  President  Lincoln  at  Hampton  Roads,  is  one  of  the 
most  unpardonable  instances  of  public  malcfaction  and 
treachery  that  has  ever  stained  the  history  of  nations. 
Nothing  can  now  atone  for  it,  and  no  excuses  which  can 
be  offered  will  be  of  power  to  assuage  the  rising  indigna 
tion  of  a  cruelly  mistreated  people.  Not  a  drop  of  hluod 
was  afterward  shed  in  this  terrible  war  for  which  Messrs. 
Davis,  Hunter,  and  Benjamin  are  not  clearly  responsible. 
All  the  evils  which  the  unhappy  South  lias  since  experi 
enced  are  attributable  to  these  monstrous  public  criminals 
alone,  and  the  day  will  come  when  the  language  which  I 
am  now  using  on  this  subject,  harsh  as  it  may  seem  to 
some  over-fastidious  ears,  will  be  everywhere  regarded  as 
singularly  marked  with  moderation  and  forbearance. 

Knowing  Mr.  Davis  and  the  clique  of  which  he  was  the 
head  so  well,  I  plainly  perceived  when  I  left  Richmond 
what  course  of  deception  and  fraud  they  would  be  sure  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  241 

pursue  when  driven  by  public  sentiment  to  make  some 
ostensible  effort  for  peace.  I  did  not  at  all  doubt  that 
they  would  avow  themselves  to  be  for  peace,  could  one  be 
obtained  on  honorable  terms ;  but  to  a  peace  on  the  basis 
of  a  restoration  of  the  Union  they  were  invincibly  op 
posed.  This  would  have  robbed  them  of  their  ill-gotten 
power;  this  would  have  consigned  them  to  political  dis 
credit  ;  this  would  have  defeated  the  scheme  of  founding 
a  new  empire  on  American  soil,  with  Jetferson  Davis  as 
its  brilliant  Executive  Chief  Imperial.  The  longer  con 
tinuance  of  the  war  could  do  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Benjamin 
no  harm,  as  those  gentlemen  well  knew  that,  no  matter 
how  disastrous  this  conflict  might  prove  to  others,  they  at 
least  would  be  safe  from  injury  by  reason  of  their  having 
a  large  sum  of  money  waiting  for  them  in  Liverpool, 
which  they  could  seize  upon  and  appropriate  to  their  own 
use  in  case  the  Southern  people  should  be  whipped  into 
submission.  It  was  fully  understood  when  they  fled  from 
Richmond  that  Mr.  Benjamin  should  traverse  the  ocean 
as  quickly  as  he  could,  in  order  to  clutch  this  fund  for 
future  division  between  himself  and  his  recognized  lord 
and  master.  The  journey  to  England  by  Mr.  Benjamin, 
and  by  Mr.  Davis  also  in  due  time,  upon  this  grand  fiscal 
expedition,  many  persons  in  Richmond  know  well  that  I 
openly  prophesied  at  least  six  months  before  it  occurred. 

Entertaining  such  views  as  these,  I  set  out  from  Rich 
mond  in  the  cold  and  freezing  month  of  January,  1865, 
in  the  direction  of  Washington  city,  in  order  to  see 
whether  the  Government  authorities  there  would  not  be 
willing  to  grant  peace  to  the  South  on  such  terms  as  1 
would  not  be  ashamed  to  propose  to  my  countrymen  of 
that  region  and  urge  upon  their  acceptance.  Had  I  suc 
ceeded  in  my  mission  I  should  have  borne  these  terms 
back  to  Richmond,  and  have  boldly  made  them  known  to 
the  people  there  resident  and  to  the  Confederate  Congress. 

16R 


24 li  CASKET    <>F    REMINISCENCES. 

I  designed  to  Itiy  this  grave  matter  before  the  people 
throughout  the  Confederate  States,  and  to  obtain,  if  I 
eould,  their  prompt  concurrence.  A  number  of  promi 
nent  and  influential  members  of  the  Confederate  Congress 
knew  well  what  sort  of  a  mission  I  was  about  to  under 
take,  and  encouraged  me  warmly  toward  its  prosecution. 
Four  worthy  colleagues  of  mine  in  Congress  from  Tennes 
see  were  consulted,  and  evinced  the  deepest  interest  in  the 
success  of  my  experiment.  I  had  no  favor  to  ask  of  the 
Government  at  Washington  in  behalf  of  myself  or  rny 
particular  friends.  I  contemplated  making  no  revelation 
of  Confederate  secrets.  I  was  engaged  in  an  effort  for 
peace  and  the  restoration  of  the  Union  alone. 

A  more  harassing  and  disagreeable  trip  than  that  which 
I  performed  from  Richmond  to  I^ovettsville,  near  Har 
per's  Ferry,  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  I  traversed 
a  portion  of  the  intermediate  country  by  railway  and  on 
horseback,  and  I  walked  many  miles  on  foot  through  a 
deep  snow,  and  in  weather  as  cold  as  I  have  ever  felt. 

I  found,  on  my  arrival  at  Lovettsville,  Brigadier  Gene 
ral  Deven,of  the  United  States  army,  in  command  there, 
to  whom  I  surrendered  myself,  and  told  him  the  object  of 
my  coming,  lie  treated  me  with  marked  courtesy  and 
kindness,  and  allowed  me  to  open  a  correspondence  with 
the  authorities  in  Washington,  which  correspondence  was 
published  in  full  eight  years  since,  and  is,  therefore,  un 
necessary  to  be  here  repeated  at  length. 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  pacific  mission  which  I 
hud  assumed  was  a  total  failure,  mainly,  I  have  reason 
to  belicv^,  because  President  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward 
had  been  persuaded  to  anticipate  a  successful  issue  of  the 
Hampton  Roads  negotiations.  The  following  short  ex 
tracts  from  my  letter  to  Mr.  Seward  from  Lovettsville, 
will,  perhaps,  be  read  with  more  or  less  interest  by  some : 

••  I  now  have  the  honor  to  say  for  myself  and  fur  a  large  number  of  the 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  243 

most  weighty  ;m<l  influential  statesmen  thai,  the  South  contains,  and, 
as  T  1 1 five  good  reason  to  believe  in  ,'iccordance  also  with  the  « ishes  of 
a  veiy  large  majority  of  the  sovereign  people  of  the.  Southern  States, 
whether  in  or  out;  of  the  Confederate  armies. .that  we,  conservatives  of 
(lie  Soulh,  are  ready  and  anxious  to  enter  once  more  into  fratcrna] 
union  with  our  fellow-eiti/ens  of  the  Xortli  ;  that  we  are  resolved,  if  an 
opportunity  of  doing  so  honorably  shall  be  afforded  us,  to  withdraw 
at  once  from  all  political  connection  with  the  government  now  located 
in  the  city  of  Richmond,  and  to  place  ourselves  once  more  under  the 
protection  of  the  flag  of  our  fathers. 

"No  one  knows  better  tha.  T  do  that  no  such  pacification  as  that  which 
I  now  propose,  can  come  from  Mr.  Davis.  His  official  position  and  his 
devotion  to  his  own  selfish  schemes  of  individual  aggrandizement  alike 
forbid  it.  But  let  President  Lincoln  issue  a  formal  proclamation,  ad 
dressed  to  Hie  people,  of  tlie  Confederate  titatex.  offering  them  complete 
amnesty  for  the  past,  and  a  full  restoration  of  the  constitutional  rights 
which  they  formerly  enjoyed,  and  they  will  immediately  hold  conven 
tions  in  all  the  said  States,  and  vote,  themselves  back  into  the  Federal 
Union,  call  home  their  troops,  and  leave  Mr.  Davis  to  enjoy,  in  such 
manner  as  he  may  be  able  to  do,  the  despotism  which  he  has  estab 
lished,  together  with  such  foreign  protection  for  himself  and  his  ignoble 
projects  as  it  may  be  in  his  power  to  secure. 

******** 

'•  In  conclusion,  I  have  to  declare  that  if,  as  1  have  never  heretofore 
believed,  but  as  has  been  diligently  inculcated  by  certain  persons  in  the 
South,  subjugation,  instead  of  paternal  pacification,  is  intended  by  those 
who  now  bear  rule  in  Washington,  city.  I  shall  have  to  ask  that — pro 
vided  always  .yon  do  not  deshv  to  try  me  as  a  criminal  offender,  an 
ordeal  not  altogether  unanticipated  by  me,  and  from  which  1  shall 
assuredly  not  shrink — yon  will  be  kind  enough  to  send  me  such  a  pass 
port  as  will  enable  me  to  go  to  some  foreign  country  without  delay, 
being  utterly  unwilling  to  witness  the  unimaginable  horrors  of  which 
the  present  year  of  this  most  unnatural  and  impolitic  war  can  not  but 
be  productive/' 

It  beino;  concluded  at  Washington  not  to  negotiate  fur- 

O  O  O 

ther  with  me  unless  I  would  reveal  the  names  of  my  asso 
ciates,  I  declined  to  do  so.  and  was  given  written  leave  to 
go  abroad,  which  I  determined  to  do  in  the  first  ocean 
steamer  which  might  set  out  for  Liverpool. 

'During  my  further  stay  in  New  York  Mr.  Seward,  for 
some  reason  not  precisely  known    to  me,  directed  that  I 


244  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

should  bo  kept  in  prison,  where  I  remained  until  the  da}' 
of  my  departure  for  England,  when  I  was  escorted  by  a 
military  officer  to  the  steamship  in  which  I  was  to  em 
bark,  and  took  my  leave  of  my  native  land  with  much 
sorrow  and  chagrin,  intending  to  return,  if  I  could,  in  two 
months,  by  which  time  I  felt  confident  the  war  would 
have  drawn  to  an  end. 

The  voyage  to  Liverpool  was  performed  in  eleven  days. 
I  proceeded  thence  to  London,  to  Paris,  to  Lyons,  to 
Turin,  Pavia,  Bologna,  Florence ;  and,  of  course,  I  called  at 
all  the  intermediate  points.  From  Florence  I  set  out  for 
Leghorn,  where  I  took  a  steamer  for  Naples,  and  after  visit 
ing  Pompeii  and  other  places  of  note  in  that  vicinage,  I 
proceeded  to  Rome  by  land,  thence  to  Civita  Vecchia  by 
railway,  thence  to  Leghorn  by  stage-coach,  from  which 
latter  place  I  set  out  for  Marseilles  by  water.  On  arriv 
ing  there  I  proceeded  to  Paris  by  railway,  thence  to  Lon 
don  again,  thence  to  Liverpool,  and  set  sail  from  that  city 
for  Xew  York,  which  I  reached  in  less  than  seven  w.eeks 
from  the  time  that  I  had  set  sail  from  that  place  to  Liver 
pool.  Just  as  I  entered  the  port  of  New  York  the  news 
of  (leneral  Lee's  surrender  was  received,  and  I  became 
anxious  to  go  South,  in  order  to  aid  in  reconciling  my 
countrymen  there  to  the  results  of  the  war.  But  Mr. 
Seward  not  deeming  this  to  be  desirable  I  was  again  cast 
into  prison  for  a  week  or  two.  President  Lincoln,  as  I  am 
assured,  was  about  to  order  my  release  when  the  hand  of 
the  assassin  consigned  him  to  the  tomb  !  After  Mr.  John 
son's  accession  to  power,  through  the  zealous  instrumen 
tality  of  several  valued  friends,  I  was  allowed  once  more 
to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  heaven,  but  held  under  obliga 
tion  to  report  at  the  headquarters  of  General  Dix  from 
time  to  time,  and  not  on  any  account  to  go  south  of  New 
York ;  from  which  I  conjecture  that  I  must  have  been 
viewed  by  those  then  in  power  at  Washington  as  a  par- 


CASKET    01'    REMINISCENCES.  245 

ticularly  combative  and  dangerous  person.  Under  these 
circumstances  I  asked  to  be  allowed  to  visit  my  children 
and  grandchildren  on  the  Pacific  coast ;  in  response  to 
which  application  I  was  peremptorily  ordered  to  leave  the 
United  States  on  pain  of  being  again  thrown  into  confine 
ment.  Without  delay  I  proceeded  to  Montreal,  in  Can 
ada,  where,  for  several  months,  I  was  the  recipient  of  the 
kindest  hospitality  at  the  hands  of  the  intelligent  and  re- 
Hned  population  of  that  city.  I  was  so  much  pleased  with 
Montreal  that,  despairing  of  being  permitted  within  a 
reasonable  period  of  time  to  return  to  my  own  home  in 
Tennessee,  I  was  proceeding  to  make  arrangements  for  a 
permanent  residence  in  Canada  when  an  event  occurred 
which  unexpectedly  procured  me  permission  to  return  to 
Xashville.  One  morning,  in  front  of  the  principal  hotel 
in  Montreal,  some  seven  or  eight  persons,  chiefly  Confed 
erate  refugees,  announced  to  me  their  intention  to  pull 
down  the  flag  of  the  United  States  from  the  roof  of  the 
building  occupied  by  the  American  Consulate.  I  remon 
strated  warmly  against  a  movement  so  indecent  and  ruf 
fianly,  and  told  them  that  if  they  persisted  in  the  execu 
tion  of  this  disgraceful  project  I  would,  in  connection  with 
other  citizens  of  the  United  States  then  in  the  neighbor 
hood,  whose  aid  I  could  easily  obtain,  defend  the  flag  of 
our  fathers  at  the  hazard  of  my  life  ;  stating  that  the  war 
was  now  over,  and  it  behooved  those  of  us  who  had  been 
seduced  into  rebellion  to  return  as  promptly  as  possible  to 
the  pathway  of  patriotic  duty.  ISTo  more  was  heard  of 
this  insane  scheme. 

A  few  days  after  this,  Major  Potter,  the  high-toned  and 
chivalrous  Consul  General  of  the  United  States,  called  on 
me  at  my  boarding-house,  expressed  the  high  gratifica 
tion  which  my  conduct  on  the  occasion  just%  mentioned 
had  given  him,  and  told  me  that  in  consideration  thereof 
he  had  himself  demanded  from  the  Washington  author!- 


24()  OASKKT    OF    RKM1NISCKNCKS. 

ties  permission  for  my  return  to  the  bosom  of  my  family 
in  Tennessee.  In  a  day  or  two  more  I  was  journeying 
toward  the  loved  South,  on  reaching  which  I  commenced 

O 

the  most  earnest  efforts  for  the  reconcilement  of  my  un 
happily-estranged  countrymen  to  each  other,  which  eftorts 
have  been  unremittingly  continued,  as  many  thousands 
well  know,  up  to  the  present  moment. 

There  are  three  circumstances  upon  which  I  shall  ever 
be  disposed  to  congratulate  myself;  the  first  of  these  is 
that  I  had  no  imnd  whatever  in  bringing  on  the  war  of 
the  rebellion  ;  the  second  is,  that  I  have  never  possessed 
the  sympathy  or  confidence  of  the  ultra-secession  leaders 
of  the  South  and  their  slavish  satellites;  and  the  third  is, 
that  I  do  not  owe  my  restoration  to  the  enjoyment  of 
civic  rights  to  Andrew7  Johnson,  but  to  the  generous  and 
magnanimous  action  of  the  National  Legislature;  in 
grateful  return  for  which  I  pledge  myself  never  again  to 
be  persuaded  to  the  assumption  of  a  hostile  attitude 
against  the  noblest  Government  that  the  world  has  yet 
seen,  and  to  do  all  in  my  power,  so  long  as  my  life  shall 
be  continued,  to  secure  the  return  of  universal  peace, 
amity,  and  true  brotherhood  among  all  classes  of  our  peo 
ple  and  between  the  various  sections  of  the  Union,  under 
the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  the  laws  made  in  conformity 
thereto. 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  247 


W  No.   XXV. 


LYNCH  LAW—  VIGILANCE  COMMITTEES  IN  THE  SOUTH  —  HANG 
ING  OF  NEGROES  AND  WHITES  —  THRILLING  AND  STARTLING 
SCENES. 

[  shall  soon  be  forced  by  the  pressure  of  other  affairs  fro 
s  upend  these  Reminiscences  for  the  present.  Perhaps  I 
may  never  resume  them  again.  They  have  been  received 
by  good  men  and  true  of  all  parties  with  indications  of 
warm  approval,  as  unexpected  as  they  have  been  gratify 
ing.  I  have  uttered  not  a  syllable,  in  any  of  them,  in  the 
interests  of  party  or  faction.  I  have  lauded  no  one  whom  I 
did  not  sincerely  believe  to  deserve  commendation.  I 
have  stated  objections  to  no  one  which  I  did  not  perfectly 
know  that  I  could  incontrovertibly  sustain  by  evidence. 
It  has  been  far  from  my  expectation  or  desire  to  propitiate 
the  hirelings  of  faction,  or  to  call  forth  the  praises  of  those 
whose  minds  know  not  how  to  give  up  errors  once  cher 
ished,  or  to  receive  the  pure  teachings  of  truth,  however 
bitter  and  unsavory.  To  haVe  received  the  praises  of  all 
such  as  1  have  just  mentioned  would  have  deeply  wounded 
my  own  sense  of  personal  self-respect,  and  have  rilled  my 
memory  with  the  rankling  thorns  of  remorse.  Persons  of 
extreme  views  and  of  unassuageable  prejudices,  whether 
resulting  from  ancient  party  collisions  or  from  sectional 
jealousy,  I  have  not  been  desirous  of  enrolling  upon  the 
list  of  my  friends  arid  approvers.  With  individuals  of 
this  sort  I  have  already  waged  a  war  longer  than  the  an 
cient  Peloponnesian  struggle,  nor  have  I  ever  desired  to 
be  reconciled  to  any  class  of  them  at  the  expense  of  rea 
son  and  justice,  and  my  country's  welfare.  I  have  re 
coiled  from  the  discussion  of  no  question  however  delicate 


248  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  examination  of  which  seemed  to  promise  any  consider 
able  public  advantage.  I  have  spared  no  had  man  from 
the  lash  of  deserved  reprehension,  of  whose  crimes  I  felt 
I  had  adequate  assurance.  Nor  have  I  failed  to  hold  up 
the  torch  of  ridicule  for  the  exposition  of  the  weaknesses 
or  derelictions  of  such  men  as  I  judged  to  he  possessed  of 
tame  and  influence  likely  to  stand  in  the  way  of  my  coun 
try's  repose  and  happiness,  and  of  the  essential  principles 
of  progress  needful  to  he  welcomed  and  upheld  upon  the 
natal  soil  of  Washington,  of  Franklin,  and  of  Jackson. 
My  earnest  ambition  lias  been,  by  all  judicious  and  allow 
able  means,  to  promote  the  sentiments  of  good-will,  of 
friendship,  and  of  true  brotherhood  among  all  classes  of 
my  fellow-citizens  of  whatever  political  antecedents,  and 
of  whatever  complexion  or  lineage.  The  union  of  all  \vho 
truly  love  their  country,  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  founded 
by  Washington  and  his  compeers,  is  a  maxim  which  I  am 
neither  ashamed  to  own  nor  to  put  in  practice.  The  affec 
tionate  and  perpetual  affiliation  of  all  patriots  and  honest- 
men  against  all  narrow-minded  and  plotting  factionists 

O  J.  O 

and  all  who  love  either  gold  or  the  perishable  trappings 
of  official  splendor  and  dignity  more  than  they  do  the 
priceless  honor  of  this  grand^and  noble  Republic,  its  Con 
stitution  and  laws,  its  high  examples  of  public  virtue,  and 
all  else  that  appertains  to  national  honor  and  happiness, 
is  another  maxim  which  is  to  my  mind  and  heart-alike 
sacred  and  dear.  The  past  of  my  own  humble  career, 
whatever  it  may  have  been,  is  beyond  amelioration;  for 
the  period  of  my  earthly  being  which  lies  before  me  in  the 
future  I  have  neither  any  over-anxious  fears  nor  over- 
hopeful  anticipations. 

There  is  now  one  very  important  subject  remaining  in 
regard  to  which  I  desire  to  be  heard  as  a  Reminiscent  of 

O 

the  past.  It  is  one  eminently  momentous  in  its  bearings 
and  well  worthy  of  the  sober  and  dispassionate  considera- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  249 

tion  of  all  who  employ  the  powers  of  thought  for  purposes 
of  practical  edification,  and  who  are  accustomed  to  treasure 
up  the  varied  lessons  of  experience  for  the  promotion  of 
the  real  felicity  of  individual  man  and  of  all  self-governing 
peoples. 

All  who  have  ever  duly  meditated  the  actual  uses  of 
civil  government  must  have  found  out  that  no  govern 
ment  can  he  advantageous  to  those  who  live  under  it,  or 
worthy  of  the  least  respect  anywhere,  that  is  not  both  capa- 
hle  of  enacting  wise  and  wholesome  laws  and  of  enforcing 
them  among  all  classes  of  those  for  the  regulation  of 
whose  municipal  conduct  they  may  have  heen  provided; 
and  it  may  also  be  asserted  with  safety  that  the  organiza 
tion  of  all  social  communities  must  he  defective  in  some  of 
the  essential  principles  of  corporate  vitality  in  which  any 
class  of  the  people  is  allowed  to  set  the  laws  at  defiance, 
to  tyrannize  politically  over  other  classes,  or  to  employ 
the  needful  machinery  of  government  itself  for  the  purpose 
of  enriching  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many.  Domes 
tic  tranquillity,  that  most  desirable  of  all  municipal  bless 
ings,  can  never  be  effectually  secured  where  injustice  and 
oppression  of  any  kind  are  systematically  tolerated  and  up 
held.;  the  oppressed  and  persecuted  will,  under  the  irresis 
tible  promptings  of  self-love  and  the  desire  of  self-preserva- 
ation,  be  naturally  inclined  to  rise  up  against  those  who 
hold  them  in  subjection ;  and  if  the  number  of  the  wronged 
be  sufficiently  large  to  make  them  at  all  formidable,  a  sense 
of  insecurity  will  find  its  way  into  the  bosoms  of  the  ruling  \ 
classes  themselves,  and  render  them  continually  subject  to 
groundless  and  fanciful  alarms  and  apprehensions  lest  somej  • 
sudden  movement  of  revolt  should  be  attempted  under  the  i 
leadership  of  a  William  Tell  or  a  Spartacus,  which  must  re 
sult  either  in  the  downfall  of  tyranny  itself,  or  in  the  bloody 
through  transient  avengement  of  long-continued  wrong. 

The  history  of  Sparta,  and  the  scenes  of  collision  which 


l2oO  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

80  often  marked  with  blood  the  repeated  risings  of  the 
Ilelotes  against  their  masters,  as  well  as  the  celebrated 
servile  insurrection  in  Italy  already  alluded  to,  in  which 
several  well-organized  Roman  armies  were  overthrown  hv 

O  •/ 

the  gladiatorial  hands  and  the  numerous  white  slaves 
whom  they  seduced  into  armed  affiliation  with  them— 
during  which  even  the  Roman  capital  itself  was  for  a 
short  time  in  the  hands  of  the  revolted  forces,  supply  the 
fullest  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  several  propositions 
above  stated.  Let  no  unjust  and  overbearing  class  any 
where,  either  in  the  British  Isles,  in  France,  in  Spain,  or 
Italy,  or  in  our  own  country  either,  expect  to  secure  its 
own  permanent  repose  and  happiness  save  by  the  meting 
out  full  justice  to  all  reasonable  human  creatures  who 
live  within  the  limits  of  governmental  control:  for  let  it 
ever  be  borne  in  mind  that  even  they  who  war 

With  their  own  hopes  and  have  been  vanquUlted,  bear 
Silence,  but  not  submission  ;  in  his  lair 
Fixed  Passion  holds  his  breath  until  the  hour 
Which  shall  atone  tor  years.     None  need  despair  : 
It  came,  it  cometh,  and  will  come— the  power 
To  punish  or  forgive — in  one  we  shall  be  slower. 

Ft  has  been  nearly  a  half  century  since  the  celebrated 
Southampton  negro  insurrection  occurred  in  the  State  of 
Virginia,  and  many  are  yet  living  who  remember  well  how 
greatly  the  whole  public  mind  of  the  South  was  shocked  by 
the  bloody  and  revolting  scenes  with  which  that  tragic 
affair  was  attended.  Before  the  painful  sensations  awak 
ened  by  it  had  well  subsided  the  celebrated  book  of  Stew 
art  made  its  appearance,  which  in  a  very  ingenious  and 
plausible  manner  delineated  a  scheme  for  the  wide-spread 
insurrection  of  the  slaves  of  the  South,  which  scheme  he 
asserted  had  been  matured  in  the  enterprising  brain  of  the 
celebrated  John  Murrell,  of  Tennessee,  who,  having  asso 
ciated  with  himself  a  number  of  men  of  his  own  stamp, 
scattered  through  the  Mississippi  valley,  including  the 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  251 

noted  Alonzo  Phelps,  and  the  whole  body  of  Thompson- 
ian  doctors,  was,  upon  a  day  agreed  upon,  to  inaugurate  a 
movement  which  would  soon  result  in  such  scenes  of 
bloodshed  and  devastation  as  no  country  either  in  ancient 
or  in  modern  times  has  experienced.  I  knew  Stewart 
well ;  he  was  one  of  the  most  sagacious  and  insinuating 
persons  I  ever  met.  lie  traveled  extensively  through 
Mississippi  and  several  adjoining  States,  and  sold  many 
thousands  of  his  fearfully  exciting  and  inflammatory  book. 
In  some  places  he  received  high  public  honors  ;  large  pop 
ular  assemblages  were  convened  to  do  him  honor,  and 
presents  of  much  value  were  showered  upon  him  by  those 
who  lent  credence  to  his  alarming  revelations.  He  was 
looked  upon  by  many  as  a  great  public  benefactor,  and 
those  who  dared  even  to  question  the  actual  existence  of 
the  dangers  which  he  depictured  were  suspected  by  their 
more  excited  fellow-citizens' of  a  criminal  insensibility  to 
the  supposed  perils  of  the  hour,  or  were  denounced  as 
traitors  to  the  slaveholding  interests  of  the  South.  I^ever 
was  there  an  instance  of  more  extravagant  and  even  mad 
dening  excitement  amid  a  refined,  intelligent,  and  virtue- 
loving  people  than  that  which  I  had  the  pain  to  witness 
in  the  counties  of  Central  Mississippi  in  the  summer  of 
1835.  Vigilance  committees  were  organized  in  some  ten 
or  a  dozen  counties,  where  the  negro  population  was  most 
numerous,  and  where,  of  consequence,  the,  slaveholding 
class  was  more  sensitive  to  the  cries  of  alarm  which  at 
this  time  literally  rang  through  the  whole  community. 
These  committees  were,  in  general,  composed  of  the  most 
wealthy  and  intelligent  planters  to  be  found  in  the  several 
counties,  but  these  planters  were,  of  course,  by  reason  of 
the  fact  that  the}7  stood  more  exposed  than  others  to  the 
dangers  asserted  to  exist,  also  a  good  deal  more  alarmed 
than  those  occupying  a  less  obnoxious  attitude.  The  im 
pression  prevailed  that  the  insurrectionary  movement  was 


rto'J  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

to  commence  in  the  interior  counties  of  Holmes,  Yazoo, 
and  Madison;  that  the  slaves  were  all  to  rise  in  these 
counties  simultaneously  ;  that  they  were  to  murder  their 
owners  and  their  families  at  midnight,  hum  the  towns  and 
villages,  and,  after  getting  possession  of  sufficient  supplies 
of  ammunition,  guns,  and  other  instruments  of  violence, 
they  were  to  sweep  over  the  whole  cotton-growing  coun 
try,  spreading  carnage  and  desolation  wherever  they 
should  come. 

I  well  recollect  that  in  the  town  of  Clinton,  in  Hinds 
county,  where  I  then  resided,  the  panic  awakened  was  so 
great  that  night  after  night  the  women  and  children  of 
the  place  were  assembled  at  a  central  position,  where  they 
remained  till  daylight,  while  all  the  male  citizens  moved 
in  armed  squads  over  the  settlement,  in  order  to  meet  the 
earliest  approach  of  the  incendiary  forces,  who  were  ex 
pected  confidently  to  come  to  our  midst  from  the  direction 
of  Madison  county.  After  the  first  organization  of  the 
vigilance  committee,  which  sat  afterward  every  day,  the 
excitement,  as  was  natural,  increased  perceptibly  every 
hour.  Suspected  persons,  both  white  and  black,  were  ap 
prehended  everywhere ;  some  of  whom  were  brought  be 
fore  the  committee  for  examination,  while  others,  whose 
guilt  seemed  to  be  fully  established,  were  hung  without 
ceremony  along  the  roadsides  or  in  front  of  their  own 
dwellings  by  those  who  had  apprehended  them. 

It  was  a  very  unfortunate  circumstance  that  just  at  the 
moment  that  these  fearful  occurrences  were  taking  place 
in  the  counties  of  the  interior  a  kindred  scene  was  dis 
played  to  view  in  the  city  of  Vicksburg,  in  connection 
with  the  gamblers  who  at  that  time  infested  in  great 
numbers  this  important  commercial  place.  In  consequence 
of  the  daring  and  revolting  manner  in  which  these  aban 
doned  wretches  carried  on  their  unholy  work  of  cheatery 
and  pillage,  many  of  the  better  citizens  of  the  place  vol- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  253 

unteered  their  services  one  morning  to  aid  the  officers  of 
the  law  in  effecting  their  apprehension.  The  gamblers 
shut  themselves  up  in  a  certain  house,  which  they  barri 
caded,  as  they  thought,  very  securely,  and  boldly  defied 
the  regular  functionaries  of  the  law  and  those  who  were 
now  co-operating  with  them.  Under  these  circumstances 
the  outside  crowd  resolved  to  force  entrance  into  this  ex 
temporized  fortress,  and  with  a  view  to  this  end,  broke 
down  the  door.  The  first  person  who  got  into  the  house 
was  a  Dr.  Bodely,  whom  I  knew  well,  and  whom  I  re 
member  to  have  been  a  most  intelligent  and  high-spirited 
young  gentleman,  of  great  professional  promise.  He  was 
shot  dead  on  the  spot  by  some  one  of  the  villainous  crew 
whom  he  was  aiding  to  bring  to  justice.  His  associates 
then  advanced  upon  the  gamblers,  succeeded  in  capturing 
them,  and  speedily  hung  them  all  publicly  upon  the  street- 
side,  without  waiting  for  the  more  tardy  and  more  author 
ized  action  of  the  judicial  tribunals. 

The  news  of  this  affair  flew  quickly  over  the  country  in 
every  direction,  and  added  greatly  to  the  excitement  and 
confusion  already  prevailing. 

The  vigilance  committees  in  Madison  and  the  adjoin 
ing  counties  were  yet  in  vigorous  and  persevering  action. 
A  number  of  the  poor  Thompsonian  empirics  were  taken 
up  and  either  hung  or  severely  whipped,  according  to  the 
seeming  force  of  the  evidence  adduced  against  them  sev 
erally.  Madison  county  was  still  the  main  focus  of  ex 
citement,  and  every  day  we  heard  in  the  peaceful  village 
where  I  dwelt  of  some  new  case  of  supposed  guilt  which 
had  been  there  developed,  and  some  new  application  of 
punishment  not  known  to  the  law  of  the  land,  but  which 
was  supposed  to  be  justified  by  the  terrible  necessity  then 
dominating  over  all  things  beside.  One  evening  I  received 
a  brief  written  application  from  a  young  Kentuckian,  then 
in  custody  in  the  town  of  Livingston,  in  Madison  county, 


25  4-  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

beseeching  me  earnestly  to  corne  up  and  give  him  my  aid 
as  an  advocate  before  the  self-constituted  tribunal  by 
which  he  was  to  be  tried  next  day.  The  poor  fellow 
seems  to  have  imagined  that  it  was  a  real  court  that  was 
about  to  examine  into  his  case,  and  that  a  lawyer  would 
be  allowed  to  defend  him  before  it.  I  did  not  at  all  con 
cur  in  this  notion,  but  not  being  able  to  refuse  him  my 
sympathy,  I  got  on  my  horse  next  morning,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  the  place  where  his  fate  wras  to  be  determined  ; 
which  gave  me  a  ride  of  about  twenty  miles.  When  1 
got  to  Livingston  I  saw  a  large  multitude  convened,  com 
posed  almost  altogether  of  excited  white  citizens,  to  most 
of  whom  I  was  personally  well  known.  F  dared  not 
name  my  business  to  any  one,  for  had  I  done  so  there  was 
not  much  probability  that  I  should  have  ever  returned  to 
my  own  home  again.  I  tied  my  horse  to  a  post  on  the 
street  side,  and  went  to  the  room  in  which  the  committee 
was  sitting.  The  trial  had  already  commenced.  I  looked 
into  the  face  of  the  poor  wretch  who  had  sent  for  me, 
without  deeming  it  prudent  to  make  known  to  him  who 
I  was,  and  that  I  was  now  present  at  his  solicitation. 
The  examination  was  conducted  in  a  very  rapid  and  in 
formal  manner,  and  without  the  least  regard  to  the  estab 
lished  principles  of  the  law  of  evidence.  At  length  it  was 
declared  to  be  at  an  end.  It  appeared  that  this  man  had 
brought  down  a  boat-load  of  corn  from  Kentucky  about  a 
month  previous,  had  carried  it  up  the  Yazoo  river  for 
sale,  and  had  sold  it,  together  with  his  boat,  when  he  be 
came  suddenly  an  object  of  suspicion,  and  was  appre 
hended  and  brought  to  Livingston  for  trial.  There  was 
not  a  particle  of  evidence  implicating  him  in  the  guilt 
alleged,  except  that  of  two  or  three  ignorant  negroes  in 
the  vicinage,  who  had  been  seen  once  or  twice  near  his 
boat,  and  from  whose  reluctant  lips  certain  disclosures  had 
been  coerced  under  the  severest  infliction  of  the  lash.  1 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  255 

saw  that  the  committee  was  ahout  to  convict  the  man, 
and  I  felt  for  him  most  deeply  ;  but  what  could  I  do? 
One  of  the  members  of  the  committee,  Colonel  Harden  B. 
Runnels,  observing  that  I  manifested  some  interest  in  the 
trial,  and  yet  lingered  in  the  room,  told  me  that  if  I 
wished  to  do  so  I  might  catechise  the  prisoner.  [  con 
sented  to  do  so.  A  more  honest  and  benign  face  than  this 
man  presented  I  have  never  beheld.  I  turned  to  him,  and 
calling  him  by  name,  I  said,  "  You  are  a  white  man ;  you 
say  that  you  have  a  wife  and  children  at  home  whom  you 
love  dearly  ;  you  say,  also,  that  you  are  very  poor,  and 
that  you  came  down  here  on  a  trading  expedition,  in  or 
der  to  get  the  means  of  saving  that  loved  family  from 
starvation  ;  you  declare,  in  addition,  that  you  have  written 
to  some  member  of  your  family  whenever  you  could,  and 
have  sent  them  nearly  all  the  money  you  have  been  able 
to  earn  ;  now  tell  me,  I  beseech  you,  were  you  to  witness 
a  bloody  conflict  between  the  slaves  of  this  country  and 
the  white  people,  on  which  side  would  you  be?''  His 
eyes  brightened  with  excitement,  his  voice  was  marked 
with  all  the  emphasis  of  deep  and  manly  feeling,  as  he 
responded,  "  Certainly,  sir,  I  should  be  on  the  side  of  my 
own  color."  I  interrogated  him  no  further.  He  was 
hung  in  less  than  twenty  minutes!  The  newspapers  in 
Kentucky  afterward  teemed  with  the  affectionate  letters 
addressed  by  him  to  his  wife  during  his  sojourn  in  Missis 
sippi,  on  reading  which  nobody,  even  where  I  lived, at  all 
doubted  his  innocence. 

I  mounted  my  horse  and  rode  in  the  direction  of  my 
own  home.     When  I  ^ot  about  a  mile  from  Livingston, 

O  O 

in  the  midst  of  the  beautiful  hills  which  lie  proximate  to 
that  well- remembered  village,  I  saw  a  large  crowd  assem 
bled.  A  good-looking  white  man,  whom  I  very  well 
knew,  was  tied  to  a  tree,  and  stripped  to  the  waist,  whilst 
he  was  receiving  a  terrible  castigation  with  rods.  He  had 


256  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

been  tried  by  the  committee  and  acquitted,  but  he  was, 
unfortunately,  a  Thompsonian  doctor,  and  on  that,  ground 
it  had  been  thought  that  lie  ought  at  least  to  be  decently 
scourged. 

I  got  to  my  own  home  next  morning.  When  I  rode 
into  the  town  of  Clinton  L  saw  a  large  multitude  assem 
bled  on  one  of  the  most  popular  streets,  in  front  of  a  store 
in  which  u  Mr.  Archibald  Kenney,  now  in  Staunton, Vir 
ginia,  had  some  years  before  sold  merchandize.  L  dis 
mounted  and  went  to  the  spot.  I  soon  learned  that  tlu* 
vigilance  committee  of  that  vicinage,  composed  of  some 
of  the  best  citizens  of  the  county,  had  been  trying  a  mu 
latto  man,  whom  T  knew  very  well,  upon  a  charge  of 
being  a  participant  in  the  scheme  of  alleged  insurrection. 
A  considerable  quantity  of  powder  and  shot  had  been 
found  in  his  possession,  which  circumstance  had  awak- 
'ened  some  suspicions  against  him.  The  committee  had 
tried  him,  and  had  sentenced  him  to  be  whipped  only, 
and  they  would,  indeed,  have  discharged  him  altogether, 
as  I  learned  from  themselves,  had  they  not  dreaded  the 
indignant  rage  of  the  population  of  the  town,  then  in  a 
very  excited  condition.  The  committee  had  been  unfor 
tunate  enough  to  sit  with  closed  doors,  which  gave  to  the 
imagination  of  those  not  taking  part  in  their  proceedings 
a  wide  field  for  unfavorable  conjecture.  When  the  sen 
tence  was  announced  the  outsiders  determined  to  hano* 
their  longed-for  victim  at  any  rate;  and  at  the  time  I 
reached  the  place  where  they  were  assembled  the  prepara 
tions  for  the  execution  of  the  boy  were  going  forward. 
The  boy  had  been  in  the  ownership  of  a  venerable  gentle 
man  of  the  neighborhood,  Captain  Bell,  a  Virginia  friend 
of  mine  of  great  respectability  and  intelligence.  He  had 
been  a  great  favorite  with  his  master,  who  had  left  him 
free.  The  captain  had  been  dead  about  a  year,  and  this 
boy,  who  by-the-by  was  nearly  white,  and  singularly  po- 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  257 

lite  and  civil  in  his  manners,  had  been  since  his  master's 
decease  a  faithful  protector  of  his  family,  which  consisted 
of  his  widow  and  a  single  female  child.  This  widowed 

O 

lady  had  reached  the  fearful  scene  some  minutes  before 
my  own  arrival,  and  had  been  allowed,  in  connection  with 
a  learned  and  pious  minister  of  the  Gospel,  Dr.  Comfort, 
to  hold  a  last  interview  with  this  unfortunate  boy.  She 
came  forth  from  this  interview,  attended  by  her  pious  and 
humane  protector,  and  advancing  within  the  portico 
where  most  of  the  multitude  were  located,  she  spoke,  with 
a  voice  much  agitated  and  almost  stilled  with  emotion, 
while  the  tears  were  rapidly  coursing  down  her  venerable 
cheeks,  as  follows  : 

"  GENTLEMEN,  you  all  knew  my  husband  during  his  life, 
and  respected  him.  This  poor  hoy  was  his  favorite  ser 
vant.  I  know  his  disposition  and  character  well.  I  have 
just  catechised  him  most  searchingly.  Had  he  been  guilty 
as  charged  I  should  have  been  able  to  detect  his  guilt.  I 
assure  you  that  he  is  innocent.  Oh  !  gentlemen,  (she 
wildly  exclaimed,)  is  there  not  one  among  you  who  will 
stand  up  here  as  the  representative  and  champion  of  a 
poor,  widowed,  friendless  female  ?"  I  immediately  rose 
to  my  feet.  I  looked  circumspectly  upon  the  crowd  for  a 
moment.  I  saw  standing  just  before  me  the  grim-looking 
face  of  a  man  notorious  for  his  violent  and  blood-thirsty 
character,  whose  name  was  Hardwick,  and  whom.  I  soon 
after  prosecuted  for  a  diabolical  murder,  for  which  he 
would  certainly  have  been  hanged  if  the  victim  of  his 
atrocity  had  been  a  white  man.  I  saw  a  new  rope  in  this 
ruffian's  hands,  the  texture  of  which  he  was  feeling  with 
his  accursed  fingers,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  ascer 
taining  whether  it  was  strong  enough  to  do  the  dread 
office  effectually  for  which  he  had  purchased  it.  I  was 
conscious  of  all  the  perils  which  surrounded  my  position, 
17R 


258  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

and  I  therefore  proceeded  with  extreme  caution.  I  spoke 
thus:  "Gentlemen,  you  have  heard  the  touching  appeal 
of  this  venerahlc  lady.  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  her  de 
corous  and  impressive  address,  but  I  have  a  word  to  say 
to  you  of  a  prudential  character  in  regard  to  yourselves 
and  your  own  future  responsibilities.  The  excitement 
now  raging  in  this  community  may  after  awhile  subside. 
Then  it  may  be  that  some  officious  person  shall  wish  to 
institute  a  prosecution  for  murder  on  account  of  the  hang 
ing  of  this  boy.  In  my  judgment  it  will  be  most  safe  that 
whatever  is  done  in  this  affair  shall  be  the  act,  as  it  were, 
of  the  whole  community.  I  am  not  willing  that  a  few 
generous-minded  young  men  shall  be  made  the  scape-goats 
of  this  vicinage.  Let  us  all  join  in  whatever  act  may  be 
resolved  on.  Now  I  will  take  the  vote  of  the  whole  assem 
blage  upon  the  question  of  banging,  if  no  one  sball  object 
to  it."  No  objection  being  made,  I  said:  "All  in  favor 
of  hanging  this  unfortunate  boy  will  signify  the  same  by 
saying  aye."  Nine-tenths  answered  aye.  I  said  :  "Those 
opposed  to  hanging  will  answer  no."  About  eight  or  ten 
persons  said  no. 

I  determined  to  make  one  more  experiment  before  I 
gave  up  all  hope  of  saving  a  human  being  from  a  fate  so 
dreadful  as  that  I  saw  impending.  The  day  was  intensely 
hot.  The  street  on  which  we  were  located  was  very  wide 
and  intersected  with  deep  gullies.  I  said:  "Gentlemen, 
let  us  settle  this  question  more  satisfactorily  :  All  in  favor 
of  hanging  will  range  themselves  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street;  those  in  favor  of  mercy  will  remain  under  the 
shade  of  this  portico."  Nearly  all  rushed  across  the  street ! 
I  left  the  spot  with  feelings  of  sorrow  and  disgust  which 
no  words  can  express.  The  boy  was  swung  into  eternity 
in  less  than  fifteen  minutes  from  that  moment. 

On  my  way  home  to  dinner  I  met  that  distressed  widow. 
She  was  on  horseback,  and  stopped  for  a  moment  to  speak 


CASKET    OF   kEMlNlSCENCFA  259 

to  me.  She  said  :  "  Mr.  Foote,  you  know  what  has  taken 
place  to-day.  You  were,  during  the  life  of  my  venerated 
husband,  his  friend  and  his  legal  adviser.  Tell  me  what 
I  had  best  do.  I  wish  to  prosecute  the  murderers  of  my 
servant.  Will  you  undertake  to  bring  them  to  justice? 
I  will  reward  you  liberally." 

"  My  dear  madam,"  I  said,  "  We  are  in  the  midst  of 
most  unhappy  circumstances  and  of  most  appalling  dan 
gers.  The  community  in  which  we  live  is  in  a  frenzied 
condition.  Were  you  to  commence  such  a  prosecution  as 
you  mention  your  own  life  would  not  be  safe.  Let  me 
recommend  to  you  earnestly  to  bow  to  the  imperious 
necessity  of  the  hour.  "She  looked  at  me  fora  moment 
with  a  mingled  expression  of  sorrow  and  resentment 
upon  her  countenance,  and  then  responded  to  me  with  a 
grave  and  touching  solemnity  of  look  I  can  never  forget: 
"  I  will  take  your  advice.  Farewell !  " 

I  remember  to  have  at  this  moment  consulted  with  my 
family  whether  we  should  not  at  once  leave  a  region  so 
replete  with  scenes  of  sorrow,  and  so  full  of  danger  to 
those  who  relied  on  the  laws  of  the  land  for  protection 
and  security. 

A  few  days  after  I  was  in  the  city  of  Jackson.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State  was  in  session  there,  of  which 
the  Hon.  William  L.  Sharkey,  so  well  known  in  Wash 
ington,  and  so  much  beloved  and  respected  everywhere, 
was  Chief  Justice.  He  came  suddenly  to  my  room  at  the 
hotel  one  day,  about  noon,  and  showed  me  a  letter  he  had 
just  received  from  Mr.  Patrick  L.  Sharkey,  his  first  cousin. 
I  read  it.  I  found  therein  set  forth  the  following  facts, 
which  were  of  course  very  concisely  stated.  A  day  or  two 
before  Mr.  Patrick  L.  Sharkey,  who  was  a  very  wealthy 
planter,  a  man  of  high  intelligence  and  known  piety,  and 
who  was  also  a  justice  of  the  peace,  had,  in  his  official 
character,  examined  a  case  brought  before  him  which  in- 


260  CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES. 

volved  the  charge  of  inciting  the  slaves  to  insurrection. 
Finding  no  evidence  worthy  of  respect  to  be  .adduced 
against  the  accused,  he  discharged  the  prisoner.  This 
conduct  greatly  infuriated  those  who  apprehended  him, 
who,  being  citizens  of  Madison  county,  were  manifestly  un 
der  the  influence  of  that  excitement  then  rusriiiff  in  that 

o       o 

most  intelligent  and  refined  community.  These  persons 
returned  home,  brought  with  them  a  large  party  of 
individuals  equally  excited  as  themselves  to  Sharkey's 
residence  in  the  night-time  with  the  intention  of  hanging 
him.  He  was  a  man  of  great  fearlessness  and  determina 
tion,  and  when  this  tierce  and  murdering  band  advanced 
to  his  house,  threatening  to  put  him  to  death  if  he  did 
not  at  once  surrender,  he  commenced  firing  upon  his  per 
secutors,  killed  one  of  them,  wounded  another,  slew  a 
horse  or  two  of  the  party,  and  then,  having  been  himself 
severely  wounded,  crawled  out  of  his  house  amid  the  dark 
ness  of  the  night  into  his  garden,  where  his  pursuers  were 
not  able  to  find  him.  He  afterward  managed  to  get  to 
Clinton,  where  he  was  then  remaining,  and  proposed 
to  throw  himself  under  the  protection  of  the  committee 
there  sitting,  being  certain  that  if  dragged  to  Madison 
county  in  the  existing  temper  of  the  popular  mind  there 
he  should  never  get  home  again  alive.  He  had  now  pa- 
pealed  to  his  cousin,  the  highest  judicial  officer  in  the 
{State,  for  advice  and  sympathy.  Judge  Sharkey  had  de 
termined  to  obey  the  summons  he  had  received — for  lie 
was  a  man  who.  never  shrank  from  the  performance  of 
what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty — and  he  now  asked  of  me 
to  accompany  him  to  Clinton  and  to  aid,  if  I  could,  in  rew- 
cuing  his  worthy  cousin  from  jeopardy.  I  did  as  requested, 
and  when  we  reached  the  town  we  went  forthwith  to  the 
presence  of  his  wounded  and  suffering  relative,  got  into 
his  carriage  with  him,  and  proceeded  to  the  room  where 
the  committee  of  Hinds  county  were  assembled.  There, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  261 

in  a  few  words,  I  explained  the  object  of  our  corning,  and 
urged  that  our  fellow-citizen,  Mr.  Sharkey,  had  a  right  to 
claim  an  investigation  at  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  his 
own  county  instead  of  being  sent  to  Madison  county  for 
trial.  After  this  Judge  Sharkey  rose  and  made  a  modest, 
temperate,  and  exceedingly  judicious  speech,  in  which  he 
recognized  the  supereminent  authority  of  the  committee, 
under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  existing,  and  ex 
pressed  a  confident  hope  that  this  tribunal  would  do  his 
unfortunate  relative  justice,  which  was  all  that  he  asked 
for  him  at  their  hands.  A  body  of  citizens  from  Madi 
son  county  were  then  in  hearing,  who  came  to  demand 
the  person  of  Sharkey,  with  a  view  to  carrying  him  at 
once  to  Livingston,  but  our  excellent  Hinds  county  com 
mittee  refused  this  application,  set  Sharkey  at  liberty, 
and  declared  their  determination  to  protect  him  against 
all  further  molestation.  After  this  I  instituted,  in  the 
name  of  the  injured  Sharkey,  a  suit  for  damages,  and  re 
covered  $10,000.  This  affair  wound  up  the  concerns  of 
the  vigilance  committees  in  Mississippi.  All  alarm  in 
relation  to  negro  insurrection  soon  after  ceased,  and  this 
docile  and  affectionate  race  a  few  years  thereafter,  dur 
ing  the  progress  of  a  fierce  and  sanguinary  civil  war, 
proved  that  they  are  the  most  patient,  the  most  forbear 
ing:,  and  the  most  magnanimous  class  of  God's  rational 

O '  c^ 

creatures  that  ever  yet  endured  the  unjust  burden  of  ser 
vitude  for  centuries,  and  were  afterward  established  in  the 
enjoyment  of  freedom  by  the  manifest  hand  of  the  Deity 
Himself.  Considering  the  conduct  of  the  sons  and  daug-h- 

o  o 

ters  of  Africa  during  the  war  and  since,  too,  so  far  as  we 
have  striven  in  good  faith,  and  in  a  reasonable  arid  liberal 
manner  to  conciliate  them,  it  becomes  us  of  the  Caucasian 
stock  in  all  time  hereafter  to 

Be  to  their  faults  a  little  blind, 

And  to  their  virtues  very  kind, 
Hanging  a  padlock  on  the  mind. 


2()2  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

I  have  mentioned  the  man  Hardwick  that  took  the  most 
prominent  part  in  the  hanging  of  Captain  Bell's  favorite 
servant.  In  less  than  a  year  from  that  time  this  individ 
ual,  as  I  have  already  incidentally  mentioned,  murdered 
a  colored  man  in  the  town  of  Clinton,  and  was  prosecuted 
for  it.  This  was  one  of  the  most  ruffianly  cases  of  killing 
I  ever  knew.  As  amiable,  honest,  and  industrious  a  man 
as  was  to  be  found  in  all  the  land  was  torn  by  a  band  of 
eight  or  ten  white  men,  with  the  infernal  Hardwick  at 
their  head,  from  the  bed  of  his  sick  wfie,  amid  the  dark 
hours  of  the  night,  upon  a  mere  suspicion  of  some  offense 
never  established  against  him  in  proof,  tied  over  a  barrel, 
and  given  one  thousand  stripes  upon  his  bare  back,  such 
agony  being  inflicted  upon  the  unfortunate  victim  that  he 
bit  his  own  tongue  in  two  and  died  of  lockjaw.  I  had 
Hardwick  taken  up  immediately  and  put  in  close  prison, 
all  attempts  to  bail  him  proving  fruitless,  in  which  confine 
ment  he  remained  until  brought  to  trial.  At  the  end  of 
six  months  an  honest  and  conscientious  jury  was  per 
suaded  to  acquit  him  on  the  ground  that  to  hang  a  white 
man  for  murdering  one  of  the  colored  race  might  have  a 
tendency  to  encourage  the  slaves  to  rise  in  insurrection. 
When  will  men  learn  that  perfect  justice  and  humanity 
constitute  the  wisest  policy  of  the  fortunate  and  the  pow 
erful  of  this  world  ? 

I  have  only  time  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  me 
morable  proceedings  of  the  vigilance  committees  of  San 
Francisco,  about  which  so  much  has  been  at  different 
times  spoken  and  written,  and  in  reference  to  which  such 
contrariety  of  sentiment  at  one  time  prevailed,  alike  in 
California  and  elsewhere.  That  both  of  these  committees 
owed  their  origin  to  the  failure  of  courts  of  justice  to  en 
force  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  to  the  gross  corruptions 
which  had  found  their  way  into  the  popular  elections  of 
that  far-oft  region,  no  one  would  now  think  of  denying. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  263 

Whether  the  social  necessities  existing  were  of  so  imperi 
ous  a  nature  as  to  justify  the  extreme  expedients  resorted 
to  in  this  instance  I  shall  not  undertake  to  decide.  I  will 
close  by  the  mention  of  a  curious  anecdote  which  bears  close 
connection  with  the  action  of  the  last  of  these  famous  com 
mittees.  The  celebrated  General  Edward  C.  Baker,  after  the 
committee  had  been  organized,  and  was  in  full  operation, 
undertook  to  resist  its  power  in  a  public  speech  on  the 
plaza  in  San  Francisco,  to  which  I  had  the  honor  of  lis 
tening.  Eloquent  as  he  ever  was,  and  popular  as  he  had 
been,  the  furious  assemblage  refused  to  listen  to  him. 
Having  reason  to  deem  his  own  life  even  in  danger,  he 
left  San  Francisco  suddenly  for  the  city  of  Sacramento. 
^or  did  he  deem  it  prudent  to  return  to  the  great  me 
tropolis  where  he  had  so  longed  lived  until  the  Presiden 
tial  election  of  1856  came  on,  when  he  had  it  in  his  power 
to  win  back  the  popular  favor  by  such  extraordinary  dis 
plays  of  popular  eloquence  as  have  rarely  marked  any  politi 
cal  conflict  whatever,  in  support,  too,  of  the  Republican 
Presidential  candidate  of  that  period ;  after  which  he  was 
cordially  invited  back  by  the  very  people  whose  menaces 
of  personal  violence  had  driven  him  into  temporary  ban 
ishment.  Upon  his  return  he  delivered  to  a  vast  crowd  in 
San  Francisco,  on  the  last  evening  of  the  Presidential  can 
vass,  the  most  thrilling  and  electrical  speech  of  his  life.  I 
have  heard  him  say  that  when  he  mounted  the  stand  on 
that  occasion  an  amiable  and  accomplished  daughter, 
seated  by  his  side,  whispered  to  him :  "  This,  my  dear 
father,  is  indeed  the  greatest  triumph  of  your  life." 


264  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXVI. 

RUM — ITS  FATAL  EFFECTS — DRUNKEN  JUDGES,  GOVERNORS, 
AND  OFFICERS — A  PROHIBITORY  LAW  YEARS  AGO  IN  MISSIS 
SIPPI — HOW  POLITICAL  CAMPAIGNS  WERE  CONDUCTED. 

There  was,  perhaps,  nothing  more  noticeable  in  the 
social  status  of  Mississippi,  and  of  several  neighboring 
States,  in  the  period  which  intervened  between  the 
years  1830  and  1840  than  the,  immense  quantities  of  in 
toxicating  drinks  consumed  by  those  who  dwelt  in  this 
much-favored  section  of  the  Union.  Drunkenness  had, 
indeed,  become  a  common  vice,  owing  to  which,  and  the 
deplorable  fact  that  nearly  all  classes  of  the  population 
went  habitually  armed,  the  number  of  scenes  marked 
with  personal  violence  which  occurred  it  is  really  astound 
ing  to  contemplate,  even  in  recollection.  At  the  time 
that  I  reached  Mississippi  it  was  almost  impossible  to 
enter  a  house  of  public  entertainment  anywhere  without 
encountering  men  in  a  state  of  inebriation.  The  prevail 
ing  mischief  was  confined  to  no  particular  class  of  inhab 
itants.  Nearly  all  who  went  to  places  of  public  resort  any 
where  paid  more  or  less  homage  to  Bacchus;  and  to  drink, 
and  to  drink  occasionally  to  excess,  had  positively  become 
so  fashionable  that  a  man  of  strict  sobriety  was  by  many 
looked  upon  as  a  cold-blooded  and  uncongenial  wretch, 
scarcely  worthy  to  live.  A  refusal  to  imbibe  when  called 
upon  to  do  so  was  apt  to  give  serious  offense,  as  implying 
a  want  of  personal  respect  and  amity.  A  very  general 
notion  was  prevalent  that  the  habitual  use  of  alcohol — in 
some  one  of  the  many  forms  in  which  this  terrible  ele 
ment  of  mischief  was  prepared  for  the  gratification  of  an 
acquired  and  morbid  appetite — was  necessary  to  health, 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  265 

and  thousands  involved  in  this  perilous  delusion  were 
every  day  taking  poison  into  their  stomachs,  the  operation 
of  which,  though  slow  and  quiet,  was  just  as  certain  in 
the  end  to  destroy  life  as  the  rifle-shot  or  cannon-hall.  I  am 
painting  no  fancy  sketch  when  I  say  that  I  have  often 
seen  judges  remarkable  for  ability  an  learning,  and  who 
before  their  elevation  to  the  bench  had  ranked  high  as 
lawyers  both  of  learning  and  eloquence,  so  much  over 
come  with  strong  drink  while  presiding  in  court,  even 
when  important  trials  were  in  progress,  as  almost  be  unable 
to  sit  erect  or  get  through  the  customary  formalities  of 
judicial  proceeding  without  some  grotesque  and  unseemly 
exhibition  which  it  was  exceedingly  painful  to  witness. 
There  were  not  a  few  members  of  the  bar  also  who  were 
found  willing  to  aid  as  far  as  in  their  power  to  relieve  the 
severity  of  their  grave  and  useful  calling  by  occasional 
participation  in  scenes  of  convivial  enjoyment,  and  I  have 
had  the  opportunity  of  hearing  on  a  number  of  occasions 
animated  and  boisterous  speeches  from  lawyers  of  no  lit 
tle  eminence,  both  in  criminal  and  civil  cases,  which  they 
would  never  have  thought  of  making  but  for  the  peculiar 
inspiration  which  they  had  derived  from  the  flowing 
bowl.  No  one  at  that  time  seemed  to  suppose  it  even 
possible  that  a  political  canvass  could  be  conducted  with 
proper  sprightliness  and  vigor  unless  some  special  arrange 
ment  should  have  been  made  in  advance  for  liberal  sup 
plies  of  alcoholic  stimulants  to  the  sovereign  voters  of  the 
land,  who  it  was  feared  might  listen  with  something  like 
stolid  indifference  to  dull  and  prosy  harangues  unless  put 
beforehand  under  the  magnetic  influence  of  intoxicating 
draughts,  known  to  have  been  paid  for  out  of  the  pocket 
of  the  speaker  to  whom  they  were  asked  to  give  au 
dience. 

I  remember  a  somewhat  amusing  incident  illustrative 
of  the  usual  mode  of  conducting  political    canvasses  in 


f»  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Mississippi  at  this  period,  which  I  will  here  briefly  relate. 
.Judge  Edward  Turner,  for  along  time  chief  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  and  a  man  of  many  domestic 
and  social    virtues,   became  a  candidate  for  a  seat  in  the 
convention  which  assembled  in  the  city  of  Jackson,  in 
1833,  for  the  purpose  of  amending  the  constitution  of  Mis 
sissippi.     The  Senatorial  district  which  he  aspired  to  rep 
resent    in  that  body    was    composed  of  the  counties   of 
Adams  and  Franklin.     His  opponent  was  a  young  lawyer 
of  some  promise,    who  afterward  became  a  zealous  and 
efficient  Methodist  preacher  and  who  won  not  a  little  dis 
tinction  also  in  the  Mexican  war.     The  voters  and  candi 
dates  confronted  each  other  at  an  early  stage  of  the  con 
test  in  a  certain  little  country  town.     There  was  no  very 
elaborate  attempt  to  edify  the  multitude  on  this  occasion 
by  speech-making,  but   the    use  of  an  expedient  far  more 
convenient,  and  perhaps  equally  potential  sometimes,  was 
relied  on  for  purposes  of  conciliation.     Judge  Turner  had 
his   large    demijohn    of  whisky  in    readiness,  and  in  his 
blandest  manner  called  up  the  voters  indiscriminately  to 
drink  with  him.     With  a  view  to  fixing  them  more  fully 
in  his  interest  this  elegant  and  genial  gentleman  took   it 
upon  himself  to  help  each  individual  to  a  drink,    handed 
to  him  specially  in  the  most  affectionate  and  obsequious 
manner.     This  seemed    to  have  a  very  happy    effect,  and 
any    man   but    Dick  Stewart,  (as  we  were  accustomed  to 
call  him,)  would  have  at  once  given  up  the  contest.     But 
he  did  not  even  think  for  a  moment  of  yielding  the  field. 
On  the  contrary,  the  state  of  affairs  seemed  to  have  inspired 
him     with    increased    energy    and     adroitness.       AVhen 
Judge  Turner's  demijohn  was  exhausted  Stewart  rose  up 
and  made  known  that  he  had  some  liquor  on  the  ground 
also,  which  he  trusted  his  fellow-citizens  would  consent  to 
enjoy  with  him.      When  the  voters  gathered   round  the 
new  supply,  he  said; 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  267 

"  FELLOW-CITIZENS  :  My  venerable  opponent,  Judge 
Turner,  deemed  it  prudent  to  measure  out  to  you  his 
whisky.  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Here  is  my 
jug,  and  here  are  glasses  for  you  all.  Come  forward,  one 
and  all,  and  help  yourselves." 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  the  multitude  cheered 
Stewart  most  vociferously,  and  that  he  heat  his  venerable 
opponent  in  the  election  several  hundred  votes. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  sort  of  treating  to  ardent 
spirits  was  indispensable  at  this  time,  or  afterward,  to  a 
man's  election  in  Mississippi.  My  own  experience  goes 
far  to  disprove  this  proposition;  for  I  rejoice  to  have  it  in 
my  power  to  say  that  I  never  did  attempt,  in  any  State 
where  I  have  lived,  to  obtain  votes  by  supplying  my  fel 
low-citizens  with  the  means  of  inebriation,  cither  on  a 
large  or  small  scale;  and  that  there  has  never  been  a  time 
when  I  have  not  looked  upon  this  practice  as  far  worse 
than  the  exercise  of  pecuniary  bribery. 

But  to  proceed.  There  were,  forty  years  ago,  in  the 
State  of  Mississippi,  many  towns  and  villages  where  the 
magnates  of  society  would  assemble  regularly  every  day 
—not  always  even  excluding  the  Sabbath — at  some  favor 
ite  hotel  or  tippling  shop,  and  drink  together  in  what 
was  called  a  social  way,  from  the  hour  of  ten,  or  half  after 
ten  in  the  forenoon,  until  the  hour  of  dinner,  which  was 
usually  about  1  o'clock  P.  M.;  and  I  have  seen,  I  am  sure, 
each  of  those  present  on  these  occasions  take  some  live  or 
six  drinks  on  an  average,  and  certainly  without  suspecting 
that  any  one  would  be  silly  enough  to  accuse  them  of  in 
temperance.  Nothing  was  more  common  than  for  a  com 
pany  of  jolly  roysterers  to  get  together,  by  day  or  night, 
for  the  purpose  of  having  what  was  called  a,  frolic,  and 
seldom  did  they  separate  until  the  appearance  of  daylight, 
or  until  a  sufficient  number  were  not  remaining  upon 
their  legs  to  keep  the  scene  of  festive  merriment  in  lively 


268  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

and  impressive  progress.  Scenes  of  disgusting  drunken 
ness  sometimes  occurred,  even  in  the  bosom  of  grave  legis 
lative  assemblies,  some  of  which,  indeed,  might  well  have 
reminded  one  familiar  with  the  pages  of  Tacitus  of  those 
bacchanalian  consultations  which  he  describes  as  having 
taken  place  among  our  worthy  kinsmen,  the  ancient 
Germans;  whom  he  graphically  depictures  as  often' set 
tling  the  gravest  questions  of  peace  and  war  under  the  en 
livening  influences  of  their  ancestral  beverage,  (which  I 
take  to  be  lager  beer;)  and  when  each  of  those  present  was 
armed  to  the  teeth  with  such  weapons  as  might  give  force 
to  eloquence  that  would  otherwise  possibly  have  been  want 
ing  in  persuasive  force — or  that  might  supply  the  means  of 
counteracting  what  was  deemed  false  logic — by  processes 
far  more  reliable  than  the  famed  Elerwhm  of  the  Socrato- 
riatonic  school  of  former  days. 

I  speak  with  much  consideration  when  I  confidently 
assert  that  a  majority  of  all  the  more  serious  criminal  of 
fenses  committed  in  Mississippi  during  my  long  residence 
there  were  to  be  traced  to  the  direct  influence  of  intoxi 
cating  drinks.  Two-thirds,  and  I  think  more,  of  all  the 
instances  of  killing  that  occurred  took  place  under  cir 
cumstances  proving  conclusively  that  but  for  the  parties 
involved  in  collision  having  been  demented  at  the  time 
by  alcohol  no  such  tragic  event  was  at  all  likely  to  have 
occurred.  Those  who  have  not  properly  explored  this  sub 
jeet  would  be  surprised  could  they  in  some  way  be  in 
formed  how  large  a  number  of  the  social  crimes  not  usually 
charged  to  alcohol  have  owed  their  origin  to  its  influence, 
exerted  either  in  a  direct  or  indirect  form.  I  am  sure  that 
no  experienced  lawyer  much  concerned  in  divorce  cases 
will  be  inclined  to  call  in  question  the  assertion  which  I 
venture  to  make,  that  at  least  two-thirds  of  all  the  applica 
tions  for  the  abrogation  of  the  matrimonial  tic,  now  so 
alarmingly  numerous, are  the  resultsof  intemperance  in  the 


CASKET    OF   HEMINISOENCES.  269 

use  of  stimulating  liquids.  How  many  instances  are  now 
daily  occurring  of  husbands  murdering  their  wives,  fathers 
slaying  their  own  children,  and  children  their  aged  and 
helpless  parents,  which  are  found  on  examination  to  have 
been  brought  about  by  the  same  terrible  instrumentality! 
How  many  large  fortunes  have  been  wasted,  how  many 
families  have  been  consigned  to  abject  poverty,  how  many 
children  of  bright  intellectual  promise  have  been  bound 
in  the  chains  of  remediless  ignorance,  how  many  hearts  of 
faithful  friends  have  been  broken,how  much  precious  blood 
has  been  needlessly  wasted,  how  much  of  individual  fame 
and  of  national  honor  has  been  sacrificed,  how  much  has 
the  general  wealth  of  the  Republic  been  wasted  in  conse 
quence  of  the  prevalence  in  our  dear  native  land  of  that 
single  master-vice,  intemperance  !  The  money  spent  in 
the  purchase  of  that  fatal  poison,  alcohol,  by  the  people  of 
the  United  States  would,  in  twenty  years,  probably  pay 
the  whole  national  debt,  succor  all  the  paupers  of  the  land, 
and  secure  universal  education  to  all  the  future  men  and 
women  of  the  nation.  And  all  this  money  is  expended  in 
purchasing  that  which  only  poisons  the  physical  system 
and  demoralizes  and  degrades  the  inner  man.  How  many 
men  who  once  enjoyed  social  respectability  have  been 
sunk  in  cureless  infamy  by  habitual  indulgence  in  the  use 
of  stimulating  liquids  1  How  many  cherished  friendships 
have  been  rudely  broken,  how  many  wives  constrained  to 
try  from  once  loved  homes,  how  much  genius  and  learning 
has  been  lost  to  the  world  from  the  operation  of  this  cause 
alone  !  Many  a  near  and  dear  relative  have  I  seen  hurried 
to  an  untimely  grave  by  the  undue  use  of  strong  drink, 
who,  had  they  not  listened  foolishly  to  the  voice  of  the 
charmer,  might  now  have  been  administering  comfort  and 
happiness  to  large  circles  of  loving  and  admiring  friends. 
How  many  men  of  marked  and  acknowledged  ability  in 
my  own  profession  have  I  not  seen  swept  along  by  the 


270  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

fatal  love  of  alcohol  to  want,  to  degradation,  and  to  death 
ere  yet  they  could  be  considered  to  have  reached  the  zenith 
of  their  fame!  How  many  individuals  of  all  classes  have 
I  not  been  fated  to  see  expiring  amid  the  indescribable  ago 
nies  of  that  most  horrific  of  all  maladies,  known  to  us 
moderns  as  mania-a-potu,  but  which  had  never  made  its 
appearance  in  the  world  until  the  strong  alcoholic  liquids 
were  brought  into  common  use  about  three  centuries  ago! 
What  a  countless  number  of  persons  creditably  connected 
in  society  have  I  not  seen  at  different  times  passing  to  the 
grave  as  victims  to  the  habitual  use  of  strong  drink,  who 
to  all  appearance  had  not  become  at  all  aware  of  the  real 
cause  of  the  destruction  of  their  bodily  health  ! 

I  say  it  with  a  feeling  of  poignant  sorrow  and  chagrin, 
and  yet  I  assert  with  great  confidence,  that  at  least  one- 
third  of  my  cotemporaries  now  no  longer  among  the  living 
have  been  brought  to  an  untimely  end  by  the  too  free  in 
dulgence  in  the  use  of  strong  drink.  Every  man  who 
drinks  habitually  is  in  constant  danger  of  forming  a  habit 
of  drinking  which,  after  a  while  he  will,  be  totally  unable  to 
throw  aside  ;  for  the  reception  of  this  poison  into  the  stom 
ach,  unless  it  be  used  as  a  medicine  by  drops,  as  it  was  so 
late  as  the  reign  of  Queen  Eli/abeth  in  England,  will  in 
fallibly  generate  a  disease  in  the  most  sensitive  parts  of 
the  nervous  system,  which,  when  once  it  becomes  estab 
lished,  experience  has  shown  very  soon  gets  beyond  the 
reach  of  all  curative  remedies,  and  while  it  is  preying  upon 
the  system,  is  every  moment  acquiring  additional  force  by 
adding  to  the  appetite  for  that  which  originally  produced 
it,  undermining  the  will  so  as  to  make  all  efforts  for  relief 
from  its  domination  well  nigh  hopeless.  This  stupendous 
public  vice  had  become  so  much  diffused  and  apparently 
so  essentially  incorporated  with  the  body-politic  itself  in 
Mississippi  thirty  years  ago;  drunl^n  Governors,  drunken 
legislators,  and  drunken  judges,  with  many  other  persons 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  271 

of  wealth  and  intelligence  there,  had  so  long  set  an  exam 
ple  of  intemperance  to  the  multitude,  and  this  example 
had  been  so  extensively  imitated — that,  painfully  ruminat 
ing  over  the  condition  of  the  community,  and  foreseeing 
the  evils  of  every  kind  which  were  evidently  menaced  for 
the  future — having  been  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  State  Leg 
islature  in  1839,  to  fill  a  vacancy  which  had  just  arisen 
—1  resolved  to  make  one  effort  to  save  the  Commonwealth 
as  far  as  might  be  yet  possible  from  the  further  experience 
of  such  mischief  as  I  have  been  detailing.  With  a  view 
to  this  end  I  introduced  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
a  stringent  and  comprehensive  anti-tippling  bill,  by  which 
all  persons  whatever  were  prohibited,  under  the  penalty 
of  fine  and  imprisonment,  from  the  vending  of  either  vin 
ous  or  spiritous  liquors,  to  be  drunk  on  the  spot,  in  less 
quantities  than  a  gallon,  and  which  made  it  a  penal  offense 
for  any  candidate  for  office  to  supply  the  voters  of  the 
State  with  any  quantity  whatever  of  intoxicating  liquors 
pending  a  canvass,  and  rendering  all  such  candidates  for 
ever  incompetent  to  hold  any  civil  office  whatever.  There 
were  in  this  bill  other  provisions  of  a  kindred  character. 
After  a  very  warm  struggle  of  a  week  or  two  I  secured 
the  passage  of  the  proposed  measure  through  both  houses 
of  the  Legislature,  which  thus  became  part  of  the  law  of 
the  land. 

On  the  morning  succeeding  this  occurrence  a  spectacle 
saluted  the  eyes  of  the  multitude  in  and  about  Jackson 
which  proved  not  a  little  amusing  and  gratifying  to 
some.  The  effigy  of  the  hated  author  of  the  anti-tippling 
law,  which  menaced  grog-drinkers  with  such  cruel  depriva 
tion  of  their  accustomed  enjoyments,  was  seen  pendant 
from  the  boughs  of  a  majestic  oak  which  haply  grew 
there,  upon  which  was  inscribed  in  glowing  capitals  my 
own  name.  I  took  no  notice  whatever  of  this  insult, 
further  than  to  use  somewhat  more  pains  than  I  should 


%  CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES* 

otherwise  have  put  in  requisition  in  order  to  make  it  cer 
tain  that  the  reformatory  enactment  which  had  given  so 
much  offense  to  the  votaries  of  Bacchus  thould  be  duly 
enforced  in  every  part  of  the  State.     The  beneficial  effects 
produced  thereby  are  yet   vividly  remembered  by  thou 
sands.    The  business  of  public  tippling  was  almost  totally 
suppressed.     The  courts  of  criminal  cognizance  had  hardly 
anything  to  do.     The  principles  of  social  order  and  deco 
rum  prevailed  to  an  extent  exceedingly  gratifying  to  the 
hearts  of  all  true  philanthropists,  and  death  from  mania-a- 
potu  and  other  kindred  maladies  was  hardly  heard  of.    Un 
fortunately,  though,  for  the  State  of  Mississippi,  demagog- 
ism  had  not  yet  ceased  to  exist  there,  and  in  a  year  or 
two  after  this  most  agreeable  state  of  things  was  unfold 
ed  to  view  a  concerted  effort  was  made  in  various  parts 
of  the  State  to  get  the  anti-tippling  law  repealed,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  a  gross  infraction  of  popular  rights: 
which  effort,  I  regret  to  say,  was  but  too  successful.    As  a 
natural  consequence  of  this  prodigious  blunder  in  legisla 
tion  the  speedy  renewal  of  the  evil  of  intemperance  was 
realized,  with  all  the  baleful  consequences  natural  thereto, 
and  in  a  worse  form,  perhaps,  than  would  have  been  the 
case  had  no  attempt  ever  been  essayed  to  drive  this  giant 
monster  from  the  land.     It  is  indeed  sad  to  reflect  that 
any  considerable  number  of  men  were  to  be  found  in  an 
intelligent  community  who  could  suppose  that  the  Creator 
had  bestowed  upon  the  rational  being  to  whom  He  has 
given  existence  the  right  to  destroy  their  own  intellects 
and    debase    their    own    souls,  and  to  scatter  wantonly 
arrows,  firebrands,  and  death  through  a  whole  community 
at  their  own  pleasure.     In  a  country  like  ours,  where  the 
successful  solution  of  the  problem   of  self-government  is 
confessedly  dependent  upon  the  intellect  and  virtue  of  the 
people  themselves,  the  strange  theory  of  human  rights 
which  has  been  alluded  to  is  certainly  one  of  a  very  incom- 


GASKET    OF    REMINISCENCED.  7 

prehensible  character.  As  reason  and  the  moral  faculties 
alone  distinguish  man  from  the  brute  creation,  so  cultivated 
reason  and  the  proper  development  of  the  moral  faculties 
chiefly  distinguish  the  civilized  man  from  the  savage.  It 
is,  therefore,  obviously  the  duty  of  all  governments,  and 
especially  of  such  as  are  instituted  by  the  people  them 
selves  for  the  preservation  and  advancement  of  their  own 
happiness,  to  provide  by  all  suitable  expedients  for  the 
extermination  of  all  evils  whatever  threatening  alike  the 
ultimate  subversion  of  their  liberties  and  the  most  com 
plete  degradation  of  those  from  whom  all  civil  power 
must  emanate.  The  whole  system  of  granting  to  any  class 
of  men  the  right  to  vend  intoxicating  liquids  in  places  of 
public  resort — thus  formally  attaching  the  sanction  of  the 
government  itself  to  the  efforts  making  to  spread  abroad 
the  worst  social  evil  which  ever  assailed  the  repose  and 
well-being  of  mankind — should  at  once  be  discontinued, 
else  government  itself  must  be  justly  held  responsible  for 
all  the  mischiefs  of  every  kind  which  uniform  experience 
has  shown  to  flow  from  this  most  prolific  source  of  ill. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  the  most  painfully  im 
pressive  illustration  of  the  dangers  which  beset  our  coun 
try  at  this  time  from  the  failure  of  the  governmental  au 
thorities  among  us  to  unite  for  the  extermination  of  intem 
perance — that  upas  tree  of  mischief — from  the  soil  of  our 
loved  America— was  supplied  on  the  4th  day  of  March, 
1865,  when  a  Vice  President-elect  was  inducted  into  the 
second  otHce  ot  the  Republic  in  point  of  dignity  in  a 
state  of  such  beastly  and  disgraceful  intoxication  as  would 
scarcely  have  been  tolerated  even  in  a  dramshop  or  a 
brothel.  No  scene  at  all  similar  is  recorded  in  the 
history  of  civilized  nations.  After  one  such  humiliating 
occurrence  as  this,  it  is  surely  time  that  we  should  look 
out  seriously  for  the  honor  of  the  Republic,  and  see  that 
18  n 


274  CASKET   OF   HEMlNtSCENCES. 

iii  nil  future  time  no  such  desecration  of  the  high  otlices 
of  governmental  trust  shall  ever  again  occur. 

Strangers  to  our  country  and  its  institutions  will,  I 
fear,  suspect  that  there  must  be  some  radical  unsound- 
ness  in  our  social  organization  if  such  conduct  as  that 
just  alluded  to,  and  the  demoniacal  influences  to  which  il 
was  doubtless  in  a  great  degree  attributable,  can  be 
brought  to  light  without  awakening  the  liveliest  feelings 
of  disgust  and  indignation. 

It  is  possible  that  the  views  herein  expressed  and  the 
unvarnished  statement  of  facts  I  have  ventured  to  make 
may  prove  a  little  unsavory  to  some  who  prefer  expedi 
ency  to  principle,  and  the  unjust  laudation  of  the  un 
worthy  to  the  frank  exhibition  of  their  criminal  aberra 
tions  from  duty.  In  all  that  I  have  said  on  this  occasion 
I  have  obeyed  no  monitor  but,  truth,  and  the  opinions  to 
which  T  have  given  expression  arc  those  which  I  have 
long  entertained,  and  such  also  as  I  have  never  been  either 
ashamed  or  afraid  to  avow  openly.  Of  one  thing  \  have 
been  long  thoroughly  convinced:  until  we  become  a  sober, 
thoughtful,  and  righteous  people,  and  dare  to  do  our  duty 
and  our  whole  duty  toward  man  and  God,  honestly, 
fearlessly,  and  patriotically,  despite  the  arts  of  dema 
gogues  and  dissemblers  of  all  classes  and  complexions,  we 
need  not  hope  that  the  solid  and  enduring  glory  which 
our  venerated  fathers  have  taught  us  to  recognize  as  the 
legitimate  and  logical  result  of  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  free  institutions  can  ever  be  fully  realized. 


CASKET    OF   REMlNfSCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXVTT. 

PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OP  JUSTICE  CURTIS,  OP  MASSACHU 
SETTS  ;  REVERDY  JOHNSON,  OP  MARYLAND  ;  GEORGE  A.  BAD 
GER,  OP  NORTH  CAROLINA — CHARACTERISTICS  OP  THESE 
DISTINGUISHED  STATESMEN. 

When  Mr.  Curtis,  of  Massachusetts,  was  appointed  to 
a  seat  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Union, 
I  recollect  that  his  elevation  to  a  position  to  which  he 
was  so  admirably  adapted  gave  very  general  satisfaction  to 
the  country.  Tlis  high  rank  at  the  bar  as  a  man  of  strong, 
astute,  and  scrutinizing  mind,  his  spotless  moral  character, 
and  his  known  exemption  from  all  the  extreme  opinions 
and  prejudices  of  party  and  section  were  well  calculated  to 
give  repose  to  the  public  mind,  and  to  assure  those  who  had 
previously  doubted  the  stability  of  our  institutions  that,  at 
least,  one  additional  safeguard  had  been  now  added  to  the 
frame-work  of  our  National  Union. 

Not  knowing  the  newyl-created  judge  myself,  I  inquired 
of  Mr.  Webster  what  sort  of  a  man  precisely  Mr.  Curtis 
was,  when  he  answered  me  in  substance  thus:  ';Mr. 
Curtis  I  have  long  known  most  intimately.  Tie  is  a  man 
of  sterling  integrity;  his  mind  is  one  of  great  vigor  and 
activity;  he  has  not  a  particle  of  sectional  prejudice;  he 
is  unswervingly  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  and  is, 
in  my  judgment,  the  best  common  -law  lawyer  now  in 
Massachusetts."  All  this  was  exceedingly  agreeable  to 
me  to  learn,  and  upon  such  very  high  authority,  too.  I 
remember  that  I  was  very  near  asking  of  Mr.  Webster  on 
this  occasion  whether  he  thought  Mr.  Curtis  superior  in 
legal  learning  and  in  general  ability  to  Keverdy  Johnson, 
of  Maryland,  or  George  A.  Badger,  of  North  Carolina,  as 


27fi  OASKET    OF    REMttftSCENCtiS. 

tor  both  these  gentlemen  T  bad  long  cherished  very  high 
esteem,  as  T  knew  Air.  Webster  to  do  also.  I  did  not 
propound  this  interesting  inquiry  simply  because  L 
thought  that  Mr.  Webster  might  himself  feel  a  little  un 
willing  to  pass  upon  the  comparative  merits  of  these  per 
sonages,  all  of  whom  stood  so  high  in  his  regard,  and 
toward  eacli  of  whom  be  probably  cherished  feelings  of 
about  equal  kindness. 

This  colloquial  interview  with  the  illustrious  sage  of 
Marshfield  was  brought  very  vividly  to  my  mind  the  other 
day  on  a  visit  which  I  made  to  the  hall  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  where  I  had  the  unexpected 
pleasure  of  seeing  the  venerated  Nestor  of  the  Maryland 
bar  engaged  in  the  argument  of  a  cause  of  some  complex 
ity,  involving  the  doctrine  of  the  world-renowned  "rule 
in  Shelley's  ease.''  F  was  a  little  surprised  at  finding  Mr. 
Johnson  thus  occupied,  as  £  had  been  several  weeks  before 
informed  that  he  bad  of  late  undergone  a  complete  obscura 
tion  of  the  power  of  vision.  ]>ut  here  was  mine  ancient 
friend,  now  almost  an  octogenarian,  standing  nearly  as 
erect  as  ever,  apparently  in  most  robust  health,  and  with 
an  appearance  of  cheerfulness  and  animation  seldom  to  be 
seen  in  any  one  whatever  of  his  advanced  years.  I  listened 
to  the  whole  of  Mr.  Johnson's  argument,  and  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  declaring  that  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  most 
complete  in  all  its  parts;  being  clear,  methodical,  and 
convincing,  and  delivered  in  a  manner  so  graceful  and 
impressive  as  to  show  that  the  last  twenty  years  have 
fallen  upon  the  physical  and  mental  faculties  of  this  re 
markable  man  with  an  influence  so  gentle  and  innocuous 
as  hardly  to  be  perceptible  in  its  effects,  even  to  the  most 
scrutinizing  observer.  Mr.  Johnson's  voice  is  almost  as 
strong  and  penetrating  in  its  tones,  when  lie  chooses  to 
elevate  it  a  little,  as  it  ever  was;  his  gesticulation  is 
yet  graceful  and  significant,  and  on  this  occasion  lie  in- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  277 

dulged  iii  one  or  two  facetious  allusions  which  awakened 
a  quiet  smile  upon  more  than  one  of  the  visages  of  the 
grave  dispensers  of  justice  whom  he  was  addressing.  I 
could  hardly  believe  him  to  be  blind  while  he  yet  contin 
ued  to  speak,  but  when  his  remarks  had  drawn  to  a  close 
and  he  proceeded  to  walk  in  the  direction  of  his  hat,  this 
sad  deprivation  became  painfully  evident.  I  approached 
him  and  gave  my  hand,  whispering  at  the  same  time  my 
own  name  in  his  ear,  when  he  greeted  me  with  all  his  cus 
tomary  cordiality,  and,  referring  to  his  loss  of  sight,  said, 
pleasantly  enough,  that  he  lamented  not  to  be  able  to  dis 
cover  in  my  appearance  those  evidences  of  health  which  he 
did  not  doubt  would  have  been  otherwise  perceptible  to 
him.  lie  then,  for  a  moment  or  two,  referred  to  the  cotern- 
poraneous  topics  of  the  day,  and  made  several  inquiries 
as  to  particular  public  men  of  a  nature  clearly  indicating 
that  he  was  yet  feeling  a  deep  interest  in  what  was  going 
on  in  different  parts  of  the  Republic. 

I  embrace  this  opportunity  of  ottering  one  or  two  ob 
servations  upon  this  noted  personage  and  upon  some  of  the 
most  memorable  scenes  of  his  long  public  career. 

The  father  of  Keverdy  Johnson  was  a  distinguished 
member  of  the  bar  of  Maryland  for  many  years,  and  is 
acknowledged  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  learned  and 
able  judges  which  that  State,  so  prolific  in  men  of  intel 
lect,  power,  and  culture,  has  ever  had.  His  distin 
guished  son  was  born  on  the  21st  of  May,  1796,  at 
Annapolis,  obtained  license  to  practice  when  he  was  not 
yet  21  years  old,  and  located  in  Upper  Marlboro',  in  Prince 
George's  county,  where  he  remained  for  two  years,  during 
which  period  he  acted  as  Deputy  Attorney  General  in 
what  was  then  known  as  the  first  judicial  district  of  the 
State.  He  removed  to  the  city  of  Baltimore  in  the  au 
tumn  of  1817,  and  has  resided  in  that  city  or  in  its  im 
mediate  neighborhood  ever  since.  His  first  argument  in 


278  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  will  be  found  re 
ported  in  12th  Wheaton,  and  was  made  in  the  case  of 
Brown  vs.  Maryland. 

Flis  mind  is  one  of  uncommon  strength  and  acuteness  ; 
his  temperament  is  ardent  and  generous;  his  heart  is  kind 
and  sympathizing  to  an  extent  not  often 'known  among 
those  intensely  devoted  to  the  harrassing  and  irritating 
duties  of  the  calling  in  which  he  has  spent  so  many  years 
of  his  laborious  and  eventful  life,  lie  is  personally  brave 
almost  to  a  fault,  and  is  distinguished  above  most  of  his 
cotemporaries  for  a  polish  and  high-bred  courtesy  of  de 
meanor  and  an  ever-flowing  geniality  of  spirit  which  have 
made  him,  if  possible,  even  more  an  object  of  general  love 
and  sympathy  than  of  admiration  and  confidence.  Dur 
ing  his  long  service  in  the  National  Senate  I  feel  confident 
that  he  never  made  an  enemy,  and  in  his  numberless  con 
flicts  at  the  bar  I  judge  him  to  have  been  equally  fortu 
nate.  No  one,  L  am  sure,  doubts  that  he  is  a  man  of  most 
abundant  legal  learning,  and  his  extraordinary  success  in 
the  argument  of  the  most  difficult  causes  has  lor  the  last 
thirty  years  commanded  for  him  a  very  high  place  in  the 
estimation  of  all  the  admirers  of  juridical  erudition  and 
consummate  argumentative  power. 

As  a  politician  Rcverdy  Johnson  has  never  (at  least  since 
I  knew  him)  been  for  a  moment  what  is  known  as  a 
thorough-going  party  man.  lie  has  always  been  remarka 
ble  for  that  true  manliness  and  independence,  both  of 
thought  and  action,  which  no  mere  servitor  of  faction  has 
ever  been  known  conspicuously  to  display.  Jle  has  ever 
thought  it  quite  possible  that  the  best  organized  and  most 
honest  political  party  may  be  occasionally  involved  in 
errors  of  opinion,  and  be  seduced  also  into  serious  abuses 
of  power;  and  when  the  particular  party  with  which  he 
chanced  to  stand  associated  has  seemed  to  him  at  any 
time  to  be  pursuing  a  course  detrimental  to  the  vital  in- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  279 

terests  of  the  country,  lie  has  never  been  slow  in  express 
ing  his  decided  dissent.  When  opposing  the  measures  of 
an  administration  with  which  he  had  no  political  affili 
ation,  and  to  whose  further  continuance  in  power  he  was 
altogether  averse,  he  has  been  always  fair  and  liberal,  and 
on, no  occasion  has  he  been  known  to  indulge  in  petty 
malevolence  or  low-bred  chicane.  I  remember  with  much 
pleasure  that  in  the  winter  of  1847-'8  he  yielded  a  manly 
and  efficient  support  to  the  war  policy  of  President  Polk ; 
and,  did  I  choose  to  do  so,  I  could  easily  specify  numerous 
other  occasions  where  his  conduct,  under  circumstances 
peculiarly  trying,  was  as  notably  upright  and  independent 
as  in  the  instance  just  referred  to.  I  believe  that  there  is 
no  doubt  that  Reverdy  Johnson  was  in  the  early  stages  of 
his  political  career  a  decided  and  zealous  Democrat,  and 
that  he  afterward  became  an  equally  decided  and  zealous 
Whig,  lie  always  openly  avowed  the  opinion  that  slav 
ery  was  an  evil,  but  opposed  in  the  most  strenuous  man 
ner  the  efforts  of  extreme  abolitionists  to  overthrow  it 
by  unjust  and  unconstitutional  means.  He  was  alike  op 
posed  to  consolidation  and  to  secession.  lie  was  a  warm 
supporter  of  the  Compromise  measures  of  1850,  but  sus 
tained  Mr.  Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  opposed  with 
the  utmost  earnestness  that  gigantic  fraud,  the  Lecomp- 
ton  bill,  lie  had  no  hand  in  bringing  on  the  late  un 
happy  war;  but  while  it  was  in  progress  he  gave  a  firm 
and  steady  support  to  those  measures  which  he  judged 
necessary  to  the  defense  of  the  Government  against  armed 
rebellion,  end  to  the  maintenance  of  the  Federal  Union 
against  all  the  attempts  made  for  its  overthrow.  He  re_ 
joiced  at  the  return  of  peace,  and  gave  his  sanction  to  the 
efforts  of  the  Andrew  Johnson  administration  to  carry  into 
effect  his  well-known  reconstructive  policy — so  far,  at  least, 
as  he  thought  his  recommendations  judicious  and  author 
ized  by  the  Constitution.  Upon  the  whole,  perhaps  no 


280  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

American  statesman  can  be  mentioned  whose  general 
course  has  evinced  less  of  servility  to  party,  or  a  willing, 
ness  to  sacrifice  principle  to  the  temporary  purposes  of 
faction,  than  the  venerable  individual  of  whom  I  am  now 
speaking.  In  reviewing  the  checkered  political  career 
which  Ixeverdy  Johnson  has  run  1  have  been  able  to  (jml 
no  instance  in  which  he  has  seemed  to  have  been  even  for  a 
single  instant  forgetful  of  the  dignity  of  his  own  charac 
ter,  or  regardless  of  his  country's  welfare  and  honor.  If 
he  has  often  felt  compelled  to  modify  his  own  attitude  to 
ward  the  leading  statesmen  of  the  Republic,  or  toward 
the  political  parties  of  which  they  seemed  to  be  the  recog- 
ni/cd  exponents  for  the  time  being,  the  circumstances  at 
tendant  upon  such  change  of  position  on  his  part  have 
always  been  such  as  to  leave  his  public  integrity  unques 
tioned,  and  to  vindicate  the  absolute  purity  of  his  mo 
tives.  I  have  not  had  the  happiness  to  be  always  in 
harmony  with  him  touching  the  great  public  questions 
which  have  commanded  the  attention  of  the  country  dur 
ing  the  last  twenty-five  years;  but  from  my  earliest  ac 
quaintance  with  Mr.  Johnson  my  esteem  for  his  abilities 
and  my  confidence  in  his  integrity  have  been  constantly 
on  the  increase. 

Those  who  have  read  with  attention  the  pages  of  Ma 
cau  lay  will  not  fail  to  recognize  some  similitude  between 
the  characters  of  Reverdy  Johnson,  as  I  have  endeavored 
to  portray  it,  and  that  of  the  celebrated  Lord  Halifax  in 
England,  who  is  known  at  different  stages  of  his  splendid 
and  useful  career  to  have  co-operated  sometimes  with  one 
of  the  great  political  parties  of  his  day,  and  sometimes 
with  the  opposing  one,  according  to  his  own  conscientious 
convictions  of  duty  at  the  moment,  and  to  have  evinced 
no  sensitiveness  whatever  as  to  the  charges  to  which  he 
was  constantly  exposing  himself  of  inconsistency  and  ftrklc- 
ncss,  and  which  fastened  upon  him  the  appellation  of  uThe 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  281 

Trimmer."  "Instead  of  quarreling  with  his  nickname/1 
says  Macau  1  ay, "  he  assumed  it  asa  title  ot'honor,  and  vin 
dicated,  with  great  vivacity,  the  dignity  of  the  appellation. 
Everything  good,  he  said,  trimmed  between  extremes.  The 
temperate  zone  trims  between  the  climate  in  which  men 
are,  roasted  and  the  climate  in  which  they  are  frozen. 
The  English  Church  trims  between  the  Anabaptist  mad 
ness  and  the  1'apist  lethargy.  The  English  Constitution 
trims  between  Turkish  despotism  and  I'olish  anarchy. 
Virtue  is  nothing  but  a  just  temper  between  propensities 
any  one  of  which,  if  indulged  to  excess,  becomes  vice. 
Nay,  the  perfection  of  the  Supreme  Being  himself  con 
sists  in  the  exact  equilibrium  of  attributes,  none  of  which 
could  preponderate  without  disturbing  the  whole  moral 
and  physical  order  of  the  universe." 

In  concluding  what  I  have  here  ventured  to  say  of  Mr. 
Johnson — whose  exemption  from  extreme  party  bias  has 
greatly  distinguished  him  for  many  years  among  the  illus 
trious  public  men  of  the  country— I  shall  take  the  liberty 
of  repeating  here  what  1  have  already  published  in  a  dif 
ferent  form  as  to  this  very  interesting  matter:  "  Those  fa 
miliar  with  the  public  career  of  Cicero — who  was  unques 
tionably  the  ablest  and  most  politic  statesman  of  ancient 
times,  and  if  not  the  first  of  orators,  ancient  or  modern, 
only  inferior  to  Demosthenes — will  remember  that  there 
was  much  in  his  conduct  at  different  periods  which  indi 
cated  that  he  too  had  learned  that  it  was  neither  wise  nor 
safe  for  a  public  man  of  great  eminence  and  of  extended 
influence  to  suffer  any  political  faction,  struggling  fiercely 
for  ascendency,  to  appropriate  to  itself  exclusively  his 
whole  weight  and  influence.  Accordingly,  we  find  him 
now  the  champion  of  the  Knights,  now  the  vindicator  of 
the  Senate,  and  now  again  the  zealous  advocate  of  popular 
rights.  While  it  seemed  possible  to  effect  a  reconcilement 
between  Pornpcy  and  Caesar  he  joined  the  faction  of  neither, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

professing  friendship  and  respect  lor  both,  and  striving  to 
prevent  such  a  collision  between  them  as  would  be  likely 
to  bring  on  civil  war  When,  in  spite  of  his  efforts  to 
the  contrary,  war  between  these  celebrated  chieftains  com 
menced,  it  is  known  that  Cicero  hesitated  long  whether 
to  join  one  or  the  other  of  them  or  to  remain  neutral— 
as  his  friend  Atticus  so  warmly  advised  him  to  do,  and 
when,  finally,  he  withdrew  from  Rome  and  sought  refuse 
in  IVmipcy's  camp,  he  found  it  so  utterly  impossible  for 
himself  to  play  the  part  of  a  servile  adherent  of  faction 
that  he  was  once  or  twice  exposed  to  the  greatest  personal 
danger  from  the  insane  violence  of  those  who,  forgetful 
of  the  cause  of  freedom,  had  become  the  willing  slaves 
of  him  whose  ruin  was  soon  to  be  consummated  at  1'har- 
salia.  Even  Cato  is  known  to  have  condemned  him  for 
not  remaining  upon  neutral  ground,  so  as  to  have  it  in  his 
power  to  interpose  effectively,  should  some  favorable  op 
portunity  of  doing  so  present  itself,  for  the  restoration  of 
domestic  peace;  and  long  after  L'ompey  had  perished, 
Cicero  himself  more  than  once  expressed  doubt  whether 
it  would  not  have  been  better  for  Rome  and  the 
general  interests  of  freedom  for  Ciesar  to  have  been  tri 
umphant  than  that  he 'should  have  been  compelled  to  suc 
cumb  to  his  more  selfish  and  less  magnanimous  rival.'' 

O 

Such  a  man  as  this  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to 
"give  up  to  party  what  was  meant  for  mankind,"  and 
when  the  acrid  prejudices  engendered  by  our  unhappv 
civil  war  shall  have  completely  passed  away,  few,  I  am 
confident,  will  at  all  doubt  that  the  uniform  moderation 
and  liberality  which  have  so  nobly  marked  the  course  of 
Reverdy  Johnson  for  the  last  fifteen  eventful  years  have 
been  far  more  creditable  both  to  his  heart  and  his  under 
standing  than  would  have  been  all  the  fleeting  &-(at  ac 
quired  by  the  shallow  and  heartless  demagogues  of  vari- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  283 

cms  hues  and  complexions  with  whom  he  lias  been   from 
time  to  time  more  or  less  in  contact. 

George  A.  Badger,  of  North  Carolina  has  left  behind 
him  a  reputation  for  solid  virtue  and  sound  practical  intel 
lect  which  will  probably  survive  as  long  as  this  great 
Republic  shall  itself  continue  in  existence.  I  knew  him 
well,  both  in  public  and  in  private  life.  His  heart  was 
full  of  kind  and  generous  sentiments.  Through  a  long 
course  of  laborious  public  exertion  his  integrity  was  never 
called  in  question.  For  many  years  he  was  the  acknowl 
edged  head  of  the  bar  of  North  Carolina,  and  in  theSupreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  he  enjoyed  for  a  long  period  a 
large  and  lucrative  practice,  and  sustained  a  very  high 
character  both  for  juridical  learning  and  for  general  liter 
ary  attainments.  His  manner  as  a  speaker  was  gentle, 
polished,  and  engaging,  lie  was  always  perfectly  familiar 
with  the  cases  which  he  undertook  to  argue,  and  never 
failed  to  discuss  them  with  a  clearness  and  force  which 
was  sure  to  command  the  respect  and  admiration  of 
all  who  listened  to  him.  lie  was  always  courteous  and  af 
fable,  and  on  no  occasion  evinced  the  least  irritability  or 
disrespect  toward  those  with  whom  he  was  thrown  into 
conflict. 

In  the  National  Senate,  where  he  long  held  a  seat,  he 
was  always  a  great  favorite.  In  that  body  he  was  not  a 
very  frequent  speaker,  but  when  lie  did  participate  in  de 
bate  he  was  ever  listened  to  with  marked  respect  and 
satisfaction.  A  truer  patriot  has  never  lived.  He  was 
eminently  conservative  in  all  his  opinions,  and  had  as 
little  of  partisan  bitterness  as  any  man  I  have  known. 
He  commenced  public  life  as  a  Federalist  of  the  Marshall 
and  Webster  school,  and  to  the  principles  first  avowed  by 
him  he  ever  most  tenaciously  adhered.  He  regarded  the 
dogma  of  secession  as  little  less  than  the  emanation  of 
political  insanity,  in  which  respect  I  am  inclined  to  think 


284  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

he  did  not  seriously  err.  He  objected  even  to  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  being  called  the  "Federal 
Constitution,"  this  appellation  intimating, as  he  conceived, 
the  idea  of  frfwltts  or  league,  between  the  States  embraced 
in  the  National  Union.  With  Mr.  Webster,  he  insisted 
that  the  States  of  the  Union  were  not  bound  together  by 
a  compact  between  them  as  sovereignties,  but  that  they, 
and  the  people  they  contained,  had  been  existing  ever 
since  the  year  1789  under  a  government  possessing  nearly 
all  the  great  attributes  of  sovereignty,  and  absolutely 
supreme  within  the  sphere  of  its  operation.  No  man 
struggled  harder  than  Mr.  Badger  to  ward  oft*  the  evils  of 
secession,  lie  stood  bravely  up  in  the  Senate  for  many 
years  as  the  honest  and  indexible  opponent  of  sectional 
extremists,  alike  of  the  North  and  of  the  South.  When 
war  came  he  could  truthfully  assert  that  he  had  done 
nothing  himself  to  bring  it  on;  and  all  the  bloody  and 
horrible  scenes  with  which  its  progress  was  marked 
awakened  in  his  mind  sentiments  of  unmitigated  distress 
and  horror.  I  met  \\\i\\  him  at  his  own  house  in  Raleigh, 
during  the  second  year  of  the  war,  and  had  much  conver 
sation  with  him.  lie  was  at  that  time  decidedly  of  opin 
ion  that  the  conflict  of  arms  then  in  progress  had  ori«'-i- 

J.  O  ^ 

nated  in  the  most  deplorable  want  of  true  statesmanship 
in  several  distinct  quarters,  and  that  there  was  nothing 
in  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  elevation  of  Mr- 
Lincoln  which  at  all  justified  Mr.  Davis  and  his  associates 
in  commencing  a  contest  that  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
ruinous  to  the  South,  and  dangerous  to  public  liberty 
everywhere.  The  strange  and  unpardonable  abuses  of 
power  which  had  already  occurred  in  Richmond  tilled 
him  both  with  surprise  and  indignation.  lie  never 
deemed  it  even  possible  that  the  States  of  the  South  could 
succeed  in  establishing  a  separate  republic  ;  and  even  bad 
be  thought  otherwise,  such  a  consummation  would  have 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  285 

been  to  him  anything  but  desirable.  At  the  time  I  visited 
him  last  the  organic  convention  of  North  Carolina  was  in 
session  in  Raleigh,  and  he  was  a  member  of  that  body. 
So  decided  was  he  in  his  opposition  to  the  despotism  then 
existing  in  Richmond  that  he  thought  very  seriously  of 
introducing  resolutions  as  a  member  of  the  convention  de 
nunciatory  of  the  leading  measures  of  the  secession  oli 
garchy  then  in  power,  and  looking  to  a  retrocession  of 
North  Carolina  from  the  Confederate  alliance,  in  which, 
as  he  supposed,  she  had  become  most  unwisely  entangled. 
He  seriously  advised  with  me  in  regard  to  the  expediency 
of  this  proceeding,  and  I  confess  to  have  counseled  him 
against  it — mainly  though  upon  the  ground  that  the 
popular  mind  of  the  South  was  not  then  prepared  to  sanc 
tion  a  movement  which  I  should  otherwise  have  greatly 
rejoiced  to  see  occur.  A  year  after  this  I  again  visited 
this  enlightened  and  high-spirited  gentleman.  A  great 
and  melancholy  change  had  then  recently  occurred  borh 
in  his  mental  and  physical  condition.  He  had  been 
stricken  with  paralysis,  that  terrible  foe  to  intellect,  and 
his  once  powerful  and  brilliant  mind  had  become  sadly 
obscured  and  enfeebled.  He  enunciated  with  much  diffi 
culty;  his  memory,  both  as  to  facts  and  words,  had  grown 
dim  and  confused,  and  he  had  been  forever  cut  off  from 
the  enjoyment  of  that  high  colloquial  interchange  in  which 
he  bad  always  taken  so  much  delight.  My  last  interview 
with  this  pure-minded  and  amiable  man  was  to  me  most 
sad  and  affecting,  and  I  took  leave  of  him  without  the 
smallest  hope  of  ever  seeing  him  again  on  this  side  of  the 
grave.  Rc^uicse.at  in  pace  ! 

When  alluding  in  what  has  been  written  above  to  the 
interview  between  Mr.  Badger  and  myself  in  regard  to 
the  propriety  of  his  originating  at  that  time  a  reactionary 
movement  in  the  convention  of  which  he  was  a  member 
against  the  further  submission  to  Confederate  authority 


286  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

of  that  Commonwealth  of  which  he  was  a  citizen,  and  my 
advice  to  him  not  then  to  incur  the  dangers  consequent 
upon  such  a  proceeding,  T  should  regret  to  be  understood 
as  being  at  that  time  at  all  unwilling  to  see  such  an  ex 
periment  tried  had  there  been  ground  for  a  reasonable 
hope  of  its  success.  I  had  long  before  this  period  become 
satisfied  of  the  absurdity  as  well  as  of  the  criminality  of 
all  attempts  to  break  up  the  Federal  Union,  and  I  had 
always  been  of  opinion  that  nothing  could  justify  armed 
opposition  to  the  Government  established  by  our  fathers 
but  the  actual  sufferance  of  "intolerable  oppression."  'Flic 
fallacious  character  of  the  extreme  State-rights  theory 
had  been  already  completely  demonstrated  by  the  open 
assertion  on  the  part  of  the  Richmond  authorities,  both 
in  Congress  and  elsewhere,  of  the  right  to  prevent  by 
military  force,  should  it  become  necessary  to  resort  to  this 
expedient,  any  one  or  more  of  the  States  called  sovereign 
from  going  back  into  the  old  Union,  should  they,  or  any 
one  of  them,  judge  this  to  be  desirable;  so  that  the  boasted 
right  of  secession  was  now  virtually  acknowledged,  even 
by  those  in  whose  plodding  brains  it  had  originated,  as  a 
sham  and  a  deception.  .Having  seceded  once,  no  further 
exertion  of  this  sovereign  right  was  held  to  be  allowable! 
It  is,  accordingly,  a  well-known  historic  fact,  which  no 
truth-loving  member  of  the  late  Confederate  Congress  will 
undertake  to  deny,  that  on  one  occasion  the  proposition 
was  warmly  urged  in  the  popular  branch  of  that  body  to 
coerce  the  State  of  North  Carolina  into  submission  to 
Confederate  authority  should  her  people  undertake  to  re 
scind  the  ordinance  of  secession,  which  had  been  previously 
adopted,  and  that  when  I  undertook  to  protest,  as  I  did, 
against  the  employment  of  military  force  against  one  of 
the  States,  asserted  by  the  Confederate  Constitution  itself 
to  be  absolutely  and  unqualifiedly  sovereign,  the  majority 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  once  voted  to  go  into 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.     .  287 

secret  session,  in  order  to  discuss  this  grave  and  delicate 
question  with  closed  doors,  so  that  they  might  have  it  in 
their  power  to  crush  alleged  treason  in  the  bud  before 
those  who  had  become  restless  under  the  unfeeling  tyranny 
then  in  operation  could  even  become  aware  of  the  danger 
to  which  they  were  exposing  themselves. 

Surely  this  occurrence  should  of  itself  be  sufficient  to 
warn  our  countrymen  against  the  perilous  character  of 
this  secession  remedy,  and  prevent  in  all  coming  time  the 
imitation  of  this  most  mischievous  and  woful  example. 
There  is  no  safety  to  either  States  or  people  save  under 
the  national  Hag,  as  all  will  assuredly  find  sooner  or  later 
who  presume  to  make  unprovoked  war  against  its  sacred 
authority. 


-88  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE   No.  XXVIII. 

DAVTS,  BENJAMIN,  AND  OTHERS. 

It  has  been  thought,  by  many  that  one  of  the  most  im 
politic  and  censurable  wars  that  the  world  lias  known 
was  that  which  owed  its  rise  recently  to  the  vaulting  am 
bition  of  Louis  Napoleon;  a  war  tor  the  prevent  ion  of 
which  that  cool-headed  and  profound  statesman,  M.  Thiers, 
delivered  one  of  the  most  powerful,  eloquent,  and  fearless 
speeches  of  his  life ;  but,  alas!  in  vain.  The  total  unpre 
pared  ness  of  France  for  such  a  conflict  as  she  was  now 
precipitated  into,  and  the  masterly  preparations  of  every 
kind  so  providently  made  by  the  Prussian  Government  to 
meet  the  unauthorized  invaders  of  her  soil,  constitute  one 
of  the  most  impressive  and  instructive  chapters  of  modern 
history.  After  such  a  prodigious  blunder  on  the  part  of 
a  man  so  superior  in  all  respects  to  Mr.  Davis,  the  recent 
1 'resident  of  what  was  called  "  The  Con  federate  States  of 
America,"  it  should  excite  less  of  wonder,  perhaps,  that 
the  hitter  personage  and  his  aspiring  confreres  should  have 
so  insanely  urged  the  "cotton  States"  of  the  South  into 
a  war  with  the  wisely-framed  and  admirably-accoutered 
Government,  whose  downfall  they  so  foolishly  thought  it 
was  in  their  power  to  accomplish.  The  Government  so 
wantonly  assailed  may  be  set  down  as  representing,  at  the 
moment  when  the  war  was  initiated  by  Mr.  Davis,  the 
power  and  resources  of  nearly  twenty-five  millions  of  peo 
ple.  To  the  cotton  States  alone  could  the  plotters  of  re 
bellion  look  lor  co-operative  aid  ;  and,  making  allowance 
lor  the  strength  of  the  Union  element  existing  in  all  the 
States  of  the  South  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this 


CASKET    OP   IIEMINISCMOKS, 

unhappy  contest,  and  for  that  of  the  African  element 
also,  which  all  discerning  men  foresaw  from  the  begin 
ning,  should  the  conflict  he  at  all  prolonged,  would  be 
infallibly  wielded  against,  the  Southern  claim  to  inde 
pendence,  no  one  can  suppose  that  as  many  as  five  mil 
lions  of  people  could  at  any  time  have  been  found,  during 
the  four  years  of  terrible  suffering  through  which  it  was 
the  fate  of  the  unhappy  and  deluded  South  to  pass,  (in 
cluding  men,  women,  and  children,)  whose  hearts  could 
be  regarded  as  warmly  enlisted  in  a  cause  having  so  little 
in  it  to  command  respect  and  awaken  sympathy  among 
those  who  had  no  hand  in  the  origination  of  hostilities. 
Besides,  the  strong-willed  and  resolute  men  whom  the 
rash  and  improvident  Southern  Senators  and  Representa 
tives  had  left  behind  them  in  Washington  city,  hencefor 
ward  to  wield  all  the  thunders  of  State  without  serious 
let  or  embarrassment  from  any  quarter,  were  possessed  of 
a  considerable  force  of  regular  soldiers,  besides  the  navy, 
and  abundant  resources  of  every  kind  for  the  purposes  of 
self-defense  and  for  the  prosecution  of  warlike  enterprises 
in  any  quarter,  whether  on  land  or  water,  while  all  the 
States  of  the  old  world  were  open  to  them,  and  the  sym 
pathizers  with  free  government  everywhere  would  be 
ready  to  send  to  them  the  most  ample  supplies  of  all 
kinds  that  might  be  needed — while  there  were  millions 
of  soldiers  beyond  the  ocean  who  only  awaited  the  recep 
tion  of  a  friendly  invitation  to  fly  across  the  deep  in  order 
to  aid  in  defending  that  national  emblem  for  the  support 
of  which  our  fathers  had  nearly  a  century  before  so  sol 
emnly  pledged  their  "  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred 
honor." 

If  the  disparity  between  the  parties  to  this  war  was  so 

marked   in    the  respects  specified,  how  much  must   that 

disparity  have  been  aggravated  by  Mr.  Davis'own  gross  and 

now  ascertained   incompetency,  and  the  singular  and  in- 

19n 


290  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

deed  almost  ludicrous  imbecility  of  nearly  all  those  whom 
he  soon  called  around  him  as  his  Cabinet  counselors,  or 
placed  in  the  most  responsible  positions  connected  with 
the  military  and  naval  movements  needful  to  be  carried 
forward !  But  Mr.  Davis  and  his  official  associates  had 
no  correct  conception  of  the  true  character  and  dimen 
sions  of  the  war  into  which  they  had  so  hastily  plunged, 
as  was  afterward  in  fact  confessed  in  many  a  lugubrious 
harangue,  and  in  more  than  one  whining  official  docu 
ment.  These  gentlemen  did  not  believe  that  the  conflict 
would  endure  for  a  twelvemonth,  and  they  \vere  even 
weak  enough  to  calculate  strongly  upon  Northern  aid, 
Ex-President  Pierce  and  several  others,  whose  letters  to 
Mr.  Davis  have  recently  seen  the  light,  having  shamefully 
plied  this  most  gullible  personage  with  secret  promises  of 
support  ;  upon  which  he  had  built  his  hopes  of  one  day 
wielding  an  imperial  scepter.  As  to  the  interposition  of 
foreign  Powers  in  behalf  of  the  now  belligerent  States  of 
the  South,  though  many  deceitful  assurances  were  received 
from  abroad  at  different  periods  of  the  contest,  no  one  of 
sound  intellect  anywhere  now  supposes  that  either  the 
French  or  the  English  Government  ever  thought  of  em 
broiling  itself  in  a  transatlantic  civic  feud,  a  formal  enlist 
ment  in  which  would,  in  all  probability,  bring  upon  it 
swift  and  assured  destruction.  The  vain  and  shallow- 
minded  Davis  evidently  thought  far  otherwise  as  to  this 
matter  when  he  spoke  at  Jackson,  Miss.,  just  before  leaving 
that  place  for  the  city  of  Montgomery,  where  he  had  been 
chosen  President  of  the  Confederate  States,  thus:  u  Kng- 

O 

land  will  not  allow  our  great  staples  to  be  dammed  up 
within  our  present  limits.  The  starving  thousands  in 
their  midst  would  not  allow  it.  We  have  nothing  to 
apprehend  from  blockade.  But  if  they  attempt  invasion 
by  land  we  must  take  the  war  out  of  our  territory.  If  war 
must  come  it  must  be  upon  Northern  and  not  upon  South- 


CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES.  291 

erri  soil."  80  thought  the  boasting  Napoleon  the  Little 
when  he  dashed  forth  so  chivalrously  from  Paris  to  be 
siege  Berlin ! 

When  Mr.  Davis  reached  Stevenson,  on  his  way  to 
Montgomery,  he  said : 

"  Your  border  States  will  gladly  come  into  our  Southern  Confed 
eracy  in  sixty  days,  as  we  will  be  their  only  friends.  England  will 
recognize  us,  and  a  glorious  future  is  before  us.  The  grass  will  grow 
in  the  Northern  cities  where  the  pavements  have  been  worn  oft'  by 
the  tread  of  commerce  We  will  cany  war  where  it  is  easy  to  advance; 
where  food  for  the  sword  and  torch  awaits  our  armies  in  the  densely 
populated  cities;  and  though  they  (the  enemy)  may  come  and  spoil  our 
crops,  we  2an  raise  them  as  before,  while  they  can  not  rear  the  cities 
which  took  years  of  industry  and  millions  of  money  to  build.'' 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Mr.  Davis'  Secretary  of  War, 
Mr.  Walker,  on  the  night  after  the  storming  of  Fort  Su  ni 
ter,  declared  publicly  that  "  the  Confederate  flag  would 
be  soon  seen  flying  from  the  top  of  the  American  Capi 
tol." 

It  is  not  possible  that  I  should  cherish  reminiscences  of 
any  kind  connected  with  the  conventional  or  govern 
mental  proceedings  in  Montgomery.  I  thank  heaven 
that  I  was  not  a  member  of  that  ill-assorted  convention. 
I  am  equally  thankful  that  I  was  not  among  those  who 
inspired  the  action  of  the  new  Government  of  Montgom 
ery.  Tennessee,  of  which  State  I  have  been  a  resident  for 
fifteen  years  past,  had  not  then  become  engulfed  in  the 
whirlpool  of  rebellion.  Had  Virginia  remained  firm  she 
never  would  have  been.  By  what  means  Mr.  Davis  man 
aged  to  become  President  I  never  exactly  knew,  though 
I  have  learned  through  quite  a  direct  channel  that  he  re 
ceived  for  this  office  in  the  convention  in  which  he  was 
chosen  a  majority  of  one  boteon\y  over  Howell  Cobb,of  Geor 
gia,  lie  was  only  elected  to  the  place  of  Provisional 
President.  Had  not  hostilities  been  actually  commenced 
at  once  he  would  certainly  have  been  beaten  in  the  popu- 


'292  CASKET   OF 

lar  election  which  afterward  occurred.  It  was,  therefore, 
all-important  to  him  that  the  war  should  he  begun  as 
soon  as  possible,  for  nothing  could  he  more  certain  than 
that  the  election  of  a  new  executive  chief  in  the  midst  of 
war  would  not  he  deemed  safe  or  prudent.  Hence  the 
precipitate  order  to  tire  on  Fort  Sumter  which  was  dis- 
pa+ched  to  Charleston. 

And  now  the  state  of  war  virtually  placed  everything 
in  Mr.  Davis' incompetent  hands.  The  border  States,  as 
had  heen  so  often  predicted,  were,  one  after  another,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  dragged  into  the  contest. 

Having  no  respect  for  Mr.  l)avis?  capacity  ;  having  not 
the  least  confidence  in  his  sincerity  and  manliness  ;  know 
ing  him  to  he  vain,  selfish,  overbearing,  ambitious,  in 
triguing,  and  a  slave  to  his  prejudices  and  partialities; 
not  having  had  the  least  personal  intercourse  with  him  at 
that  time  for  years ;  knowing  well  that  he  had  cherished 
an  undying  hatred  for  me  ever  since  I  had  beaten  him  for 
the  oth'cc  of  Governor  of  Mississippi  in  1851,  and  had 
thus  aided  in  thwarting  the  scheme  which  he  and  others 
had  then  set  on  foot  to  withdraw  the  Southern  States  from 
the  Federal  Union,  it  may  seem  a  little  surprising  to  some 
that  I  should  have  consented  to  occupy  for  a  moment  a 
seat  in  the  Confederate  Congress.  But  it  was  mainly  be 
cause  L  entertained  such  an  unfavorable  opinion  of  Mr. 
Davis,  and  because.  I  painfully  distrusted  his  aims  and 
purposes,  that  I  was  willing  to  come  near  to  him  in  an 
official  capacity  ;  that  thus  I  might  have  it  in  my  power 
to  keep  watch  over  all  his  movements,  and  aid  as  far  as 
might  be  possible  in  disappointing  his  projectsof  personal 
ambition.  F  certainly  intended  to  give  a  faithful  and 
true  support  to  the  Confederate  cause  after  I  had  become 
enlisted  in  it,  as  T  indisputably  did  ;  but  F  did  not  intend 
to  let  Mr.  Davis  become  an  emperor  if  1  could  prevent  it, 
nor  allow  his  servitors  in  Congress  to  organize  a  military 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  293 

despotism  in  Richmond  upon  the  false  pretext  that  they 
were  extreme  devotees  to  State  rights  and  to  Southern 
independence.  In  point  of  fact  I  was  never  at  the  Presi 
dential  Mansion  once  during  my  four  years'  stay  in  Rieh- 
mond,  and  not  a  day  passed  while  I  occupied  a  seat  in 
the  Confederate  Congress  that  was  not  more  or  less  sig 
nalized  by  my  vehement  opposition  to  Mr.  Davis  and  to 
most  of  the  members  of  his  infamous  Cabinet,  whom  I 
well  knew  to  be  absolute  slaves  to  his  will — mercenary  to 
unscrupulousness  ;  corrupt,  and  contemptible.  Almost 
every  day  I  felt  that  my  life  was  in  danger;  but  every 
day  I  was  more  and  more  zealous  in  my  opposition  to  Mr. 
Davis  and  his  favorite  measures  of  policy,  and  to  the  cor 
rupt  and  profligate  schemes  of  his  special  friends  and  sup 
porters.  It  is  eminently  painful  to  me  to  speak  of  these  : 
things,  but  the  time  has  come  when  the  truth  must  be 
told.  A  great  experiment  of  States-right  secession  has 
been  made,  and  it  is  important  that  the  world  should 
know  precisely  what  baneful  consequences  resulted  from 
this  experiment,  in  order  that  no  such  insane  and  deplora 
ble  attempt  shall  again  be  essayed  in  any  part  of  this 
broad  Union,  and  in  order  that  all  may  be  solemnly 
warned  not  to  take  even  the  first  step  toward  that  evil 
state  of  things  which  was  soon  to  be  realized  in  Rich 
mond.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  more  heartless  and  grind 
ing  despotism  has  been  anywhere  known  since  the  days 
of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  than  the  one  there  set  on  foot. 
Upon  the  pretext  of  military  necessity  all  power  was  con 
centrated  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  myrmidons, 
and  not  a  particle  of  this  power  was  intrusted  to  them 
that  they  did  not  criminally  and  corruptly  transcend  and 
abuse.  By  a  shameful  act  of  servility  Mr.  Davis  was 
given  authority  to  suspend  the  great  charter  of  liberty 
whenever  and  wherever  he  pleased,  and  this  was  done  on 
his  own  earnest  solicitation.  A  bill  was  passed  called  the 


29-i  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

"  Forcible  Impressment  Law,"  which  placed  all  the  means 
of  subsistence  for  men  and  domestic  animals  completely 
under  the  control  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  official  servitors,  a 
large  proportion  of  whom  were  dishonest  and  oppressive 
beyond  anything  which  can  be  conceived  of,  save  by  those 
who  came  in  contact  with  that  terrible  system  of  fraud 
and  violence  which  they  introduced.  A  conscription  law 
was  passed  which  brought  under  Mr.  Davis'  command 
every  able-bodied  man  in  the  South  between  the  ages  of 
sixteen  and  forty-five ;  and  all  who  refused  to  serve  in  the 
Confederate  army  against  the  paternal  government  of 
their  fathers  were  subject  to  be  shot  as  for  desertion. 
When  the  bill  for  this  purpose  was  upon  its  passage  I 
offered  thirteen  different  amendments  to  it  intended  to  cor 
rect  palable  unconstitutionalities  ;  and  all  these  were  rapidly 
voted  down;  when,  together  with  only  a  small  number  of 
others,  I  voted  against  the  measure.  This  law  of  con 
scription  was  most  rigorously  and  cruelly  enforced,  and 
was  the  cause,  not  only  of  very  general  popular  disgust, 
but  the  fatal  enfeeblement  of  the  Confederate  army  by 
actual  desertion.  A  sweeping  confiscation  act  was  passed, 
designed  to  take  away  all  the  property  of  those  who  any 
where  within  the  limits  of  the  Confederate  States  did  not 
give  open  countenance  and  support  to  the  cause  of  the 
rebellion.  This  law  was  afterward  so  amplified  and  ex 
tended  by  amendment,  at  the  instance  of  Mr.  Perkins,  of 
Louisiana — a  special  devotee  and  confidant  of  Mr.  Davis — 
as  to  embrace  the  property  of  men,  women,  and  children, 
wheresoever  located,  that  might  chance  to  be  then  absent, 
who,  holding  property  in  the  South,  did  not  immediately 
return  within  the  confines  of  the  Confederate  States  and 
take  an  active  part  in  the  war.  When  this  most  nefa 
rious  amendment  was  under  consideration  I  earnestly  pro 
tested  against  it,  and  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
mover  that  such  men  as  the  venerable  Dr.  Duncan  and 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  295 

Leven  P.  Marshall,  of  New  York,  both  formerly  of  Mis 
sissippi,  would  be  stripped  by  this  law  of  the  most  of  what 
they  were  worth,  though  their  age  and  other  causes  had 
prevented  their  taking  any  decided  interest  in  the  war  ; 
to  which  Mr.  Perkins  responded  that  it  was  just  such 
men  as  these  that  he  wished  to  bring  within  the  opera 
tion  of  the  law,  I  then  ventured  to  mention  that  there 
were  two  most  amiable  and  accomplished  ladies  of  the 
city  of  Nashville — Mrs.  Porter,  the  daughter  of  the  ven 
erable  Felix  Grundy,  and  Mrs.  Player,  the  stepdaughter 
of  John  Bell — who  would  be  ruined  by  this  law  ;  for  one 
of  them  was  in  Philadelphia  and  the  other  in  Hartford, 
for  the  education  of  their  children  respectively ;  -when  I 
was  again  answered  that  it  was  precisely  such  cases  as 
those  described  by  me  which  it  was  desired  to  reach. 
And  so  this  law  passed ;  and  had  the  Confederate  cause 
triumphed,  and  Mr.  Davis  been  continued  in  power,  verily 
it  would  have  been  enforced  to  the  letter ! 

.At  last  a  member  from  Mississippi  came  one  morning 
into  the  House  of  Representatives  and  ottered  a  bill  for 
adoption  which  proposed  the  immediate  and  universal 
establishment  of  martial  law,  and  for  an  indefinite  period  of 
time,  arid  this  movement  was  notoriously  inspired  by  Mr. 
Davis  himself.  I  got  up  immediately  and  denounced  it 
as  a  cold-blooded  and  unprincipled  attempt  to  establish 
an  armed  despotism,  at  which  the  proposer  grew  affrighted. 
He  came  into  the  House  next  morning  and  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  withdraw  it ;  but,  as  I  made  sfern  objection 
to  this,  it  was  not  withdrawn,  and  now  remains  a  perma 
nent  monument  of  infamy  and  reproach.  A  slavish  Con 
gress  even  went  so  far  in  its  devotion  to  Mr.  Davis  as  to 
adopt  a  passport  law,  making  it  criminal  even  for  a  mem 
ber  of  Congress  to  leave  Richmond  except  under  the  sign- 
manual  of  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  Mr.  Davis'  Secretary  of 
State,  and  the  known  writer  of  his  executive  messages. 


296  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

A  few  months  before  this  evil  apparition  of  11  Govern 
ment,  built  upon  the  basis  of  extreme  States'  rights  and 
secession,  broke  up,  :i  bill  or  resolution  was  introduced 
and  passed  unanimously  in  the  Confederate  Senate,  pro 
viding  for  the  payment  of  $7,000  in  gold  to  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  as  part  of  his  presidential  salary  ot  $25,000.  This  was 
evidently  intended  as  a  preliminary  step  toward  paying  the 
whole  $25,000  in  gold  thereafter.  The  bill  had  been 
under  consideration  in  the  body  where  it  originated  for 
several  days,  and  had  been  much  discussed  in  the  Rich 
mond  newspapers,  so  that  Air.  Davis  was  bound  to  know 
that  it  was  before  Congress.  By  existing  law  bis  salary 
was  payable  alone  in  Confederate  paper,  and  such  was  the 
distinct  understanding  when  his  second  election  occurred. 
His  remarkable  physiognomy  stood  visibly  impressed  upon 
every  Confederate  note,  so  that  the  payment  of  his  salary 
in  anything  but  Confederate  paper  was  fatally  to  discredit 
the  only  currency  we  had.  Air.  Davis  had  a  dwelling- 
house  supplied  to  him;  and  furniture,  fuel,  and  provision 
for  some  six  horses  at  the  Government's  expense.  The 
members  of  Congress  were  content  to  receive  as  the  re 
compense  of  their  legislative  labors  Confederate  money, 
though  it  was  now  worth  only  ten  cents  on  the  dollar. 
The  Con  federate  soldiers  would  have  been  glad  to  get  their 
own  wretched  pay  in  the  paper  currency,  but  could  not 
even  get  that.  The  poor  fellows  were,  most  of  them,  in 
rags  and  barefoot.  When  this  legislative  nionstrutii  /><>r- 
rendtun  reached  the  House,  I  rose  in  my  place,  and  said  that 
i  would  move  a  test  vote;  I  wished  to  know  how  many 
men  there  were  slavish  and  corrupt  enough  to  vote  for 
so  infamous  a  measure,  and  I  moved  to  put  it  on  the  table, 
calling  for  the  yeas  and  nays.  To  the  honor  of  the  body, 
be  it  spoken,  only  seven  persons  had  the  unblushing  audau- 
ity  to  vote  yea  !  Some  of  these,  I  learn,  are  now  com. 
plaining  most  vehemently  that  the  Congress  of  the  United 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  297 

States  recently  increased  the  President's  salary  from 
?25,000  to  $50,000,  though  every  man  of  senee  knows 
that  $f>0,000  will  hardly  go  as  far  as  $10,000  would  have 
done,  in  the  purchase  of  the  necessaries  of  lite,  in  the  days 
of  our  earlier  Presidents. 

I  have  not  stated  a  hundredth  part  of  the  enormities 
the  enactment  of  which  I  was  daily  compelled  to  witness 
in  Richmond.  I  hope  never  to  be  compelled  to  detail  all 
I  witnessed  there.  I  shall  spend  no  time  upon  Mr.  Davis' 
cruel  persecution  of  such  meritorious  officers  as  Joe  John 
ston,  Beauregard,  Gustavus  Smith,  Stonewall  Jackson, 
and  others;  nor  shall  I  explain  here  how  the  last-men 
tioned  personage  was  prevented  from  retiring  abruptly 
from  the  Confederate  service,  as  a  consequence  of  the  con 
tinued  annoyances  to  which  he  was  subjected,  by  the 
special  interposition  of  the  Virginia  Legislature.  .Nor 
need  I  expatiate  here  upon  Mr.  Davis'  unpardonable  ad 
herence  to  such  men  as  Bragg  and  Hind  man,  both  of 
whom,  as  i  repeatedly  proved  in  Congress,  by  irrefutable 
testimony,  were  covered  thickly  with  the  blood  of  inno 
cent  men  whom  they  had  murdered  deliberately  and  with 
out  the  least  authority  even  of  what  we  at  that  time  re 
cognized  as  law.  Nor  shall  I  advert  to  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Davis  had  notoriously  kept  in  the  office  of  Commissary 
General,  in  opposition  to  almost  universal  public  senti 
ment,  the  infamous  Northup,  a  man  once  confined  in  a 
mad-house,  and  then  obviously  in  an  unsound  state  of 
mind,  whose  administration  of  the  commissary  depart 
ment  had  been  such  as  almost  to  break  up  the  army  by 
starvation,  and  that  in  spite  of  all  the  exposures  which  I 
had  from  time  to  time  made  of  his  malefactionshe  still  held 
on  to  him  until  he  could  get  no  respectable  person  to  hold 
the  Secretaryship  of  War,  except  on  the  condition  of  this 
man's  removal.  These  are  indeed  most  painful  reminis- 


298  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

cences,  a  minute  record  of  which  would  only  awaken 
profitless  disgust  and  horror. 

At  length  the  time  came  when  there  was  no  longer  grouod 
for  rational  hope  that  the  Confederate  cause  could  he 
upheld  for  even  three  months  longer.  On  consultation 
with  several  of  the  ablest  and  most  worthy  military  com 
manders  in  and  about  Richmond,  as  to  the  possibility  of 
our  continuing  to  hold  out  against  the  overwhelming 
Union  force  then  in  the  neighborhood  of  Richmond,  these 
gentlemen  all  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  success  of 
the  Confederate  cause  had  become  utterly  hopeless.  I 
then  went  into  the  Confederate  Congress,  armed  in  full 
proof  as  to  this  matter,  and  urged  that  Mr.  Davis  should 
be  at  once  and  urgently  requested  to  open  negotiations  for 
peace.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to  show  to  that  body  that 
if  peace  were  then  asked  for  it  could  be  at  once  obtained, 
and  on  honorable  terms  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln  ;  and 
that  should  we  defer  action  on  this  subject  until  the  month 
of  March,  1865 — three  months  thereafter — the  Congress 
just  elected,  who  would  then  come  into  power,  would  be 
sure  to  exact  terms  far  more  harsh  and  rigorous  than 
those  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  then  inclined  to  exact.  I 
urged  that  those  who  now  persevered  in  continuing  a 
hopeless  war  would  make  themselves  responsihle  for  all 
the  precious  blood  that  might  be  thereafter  shed.  But  I 
should  have  talked  with  about  as  much  effect  if  I  had 
been  addressing  the  dead. 

In  despair  of  obtaining  peace  by  any  other  means  I 
consulted-  with  a  majority  of  my  own  colleagues  in  Con 
gress  from  Tennessee,  and  with  their  full  sanction  I  deter 
mined  to  set  oft'  for  Washington,  in  order  to  ascertain 
from  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  lips  what  conditions  of  peace  he 
would  be  willing  to  accord  to  us.  If  just  and  honorable 
terms  should  be  named  to  me  I  was  to  bring  back  these 
terms  to  Richmond,  divulge  them  there,  and  appeal  to 
the  people  of  the  South,  at  their  homes,  and  to  our  sol- 


CASKET    OF    KEMINISCENCES.  299 

diers  in  camp,  to  put  an  end  to  the  further  effusion  of 
blood,  whether  Mr.  Davis  wished  it  or  not.  I  knew  that 
this  experiment  would  he  a  perilous  one,  but  I  resolved  to 
undertake  it  at  all  hazards.  There  was  no  other  course 
left,  for  I  perfectly  well  knew  that  Mr.  Davis  would  never 
make  peace  except  on  the  basis  of  Southern  independence. 
Still,  if  independence  should  at  last  be  secured,  he  ex 
pected  his  temples  to  be  encased  in  an  imperial  crown, 
and  that  he,  Louis  Napoleon,  and  some  Emperor  on  Mex 
ican  soil  acting  under  Napoleonic  direction,  would  there 
after  control  the  destinies  of  two  hemispheres:  As  to  Mr. 
Davis'  own  hopes  and  plans,  as  well  as  the  earnest  wishes 
of  his  admiring  and  confidential  friends,  I  could  not  have 
the  least  doubt. 

How,  after  I  left  Richmond,  Mr.  Davis  was  persuaded 
to  send  three  commissioners  down  the  James  river  to  meet 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward,  in  order  to  treat  of  peace  ; 
how  Mr.  Lincoln  offered  terms  to  which  the  South  could 
have  honorably  acceded — terms  embracing  universal  am 
nesty,  and  perhaps  a  good  deal  more;  how,  when  these 
commissioners  returned  to  Richmond  and  were  refused 
permission  to  divulge  the  favorable  language  used  by 
President  Lincoln  in  his  interview  with  them,  for  fear 
that  Congress  and  the  country  might  consent  to  peace  on 
the  terms  proposed ;  what  arts  were  used  to  blind  and 
deceive  the  people  of  the  South  in  regard  to  the  scene  be 
tween  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  peace  commissioners  at  the 
mouth  of  the  James  river — all  with  a  view  of  keeping  up 
the  war  spirit ;  how,  after  the  lapse  of  a  week  or  two,  the 
Confederate  Congress,  at  last  finding  out  Mr.  Davis'  true 
character  and  becoming  satisfied  of  his  utter  incompetency, 
by  a  sort  of  coup  d'etat,  stripped  him  of  all  military  power 
and  substituted  for  him  in  regard  to  the  management  of 
all  military  afhiirs  the  noble  and  high-minded  Lee,  I  shall 
leave  to  be  more  fully  explained  by  others ;  the  same  not 
being  strictly  a  subject  of  my  own  personal  reminiscence. 


>n"  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXIX. 

MR.   LINCOLN — MR.  DAVIS — THE    PEACE  COMMISSIONERS — MR. 
STEPHENS'  DISCLOSURES. 

Since  the  days  of  Sesostris  no  war  has  occurred  so  im 
portant,  alike  in  its  character  and  its  consequences,  as 
that  which  was  brought  to  an  end  on  the  soil  of  America 
eight  years  ago;  and  those  who  won  renown  in  that  war, 
either  as  sage  and  patriotic  statesmen,  or  as  brave,  ener 
getic,  skillful,  yet  upright,  humane,  and  magnanimous 
commanders  of  armies,  may  be  well  regarded  as  having, 
by  their  commingled  wisdom  and  valor,  secured  to  them 
selves  the  respect  and  admiration  of  the  present  and  o{  all 
future  generations.  Surely  the  time  will  come,  and  I 
would  fain  believe  that  it  is  even  now  not  far  distant, 
when  all  those  who  honestly  and  energetically  toiled  in 
this  struggle — who  wisely  thought  and  boldly  and  elo 
quently  spoke  or  wrote  touching  the  grand  questions  con 
nected  with  its  rise  and  progress — or  who  incurred  all  the 
dangers  and  discomforts  of  a  war  so  wasting  and  sanguin 
ary,  under  the  undoubting  conviction  that  they  were 
moving  forward  in  the  pathway  of  duty,  will  be  univer 
sally  recognized  as  entitled  to  the  affectionate  esteem  and 
reverence  of  all  who  are  capable  of  duly  estimating  pure 
and  elevated  motives  of  action,  and  those  high-souled  and 
manly  achievements  to  which  such  motives  alone  can 
prompt.  That  there  were  men  of  high  ability  and  of  emi 
nent  moral  worth  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other  in  this 
great  and  memorable  contest,  and  that  there  were  like 
wise  evil-disposed  and  profligate  monsters  in  human  shape 
as  well  among  the  supporters  of  the  cause  which  ulti- 


CASlvET   OF   KEMltilSCENCES.  301 

mately  triumphed,  and  which  ought  to  have  triumphed, 
as  in  the  less  numerous  and  less  fortunate  ranks  of  its  ad 
versaries,  no  liberal-spirited  and  enlightened  man  has  ever 
yet  douhted  ;  and,  indeed,  to  deny  the  truth  of  this  propo 
sition  would  be  alike  unjust  to  meritorious  personages, 
many  of  whom  now  slumber  in  the  grave,  and  to  the  hard- 
won  honor  of  the  American  people  themselves,  now,  thank 
Heaven  !  once  more  united  by  ties  of  mutual  amity  and 
confidence  which,  I  trust,  will  never  be  again  either  burst 
asunder  or  seriously  enfeebled. 

Few  can  be  now  so  blind  as  not  to  perceive  that,  had 
this  great  Republic  been  permanently  dissevered,  perpetual 
border  wars  would  have  been  inevitable  ;  that  large  stand 
ing  armies  would  have  been  organized  on  either  side  of 
the  line  of  territorial  separation,  and  that  ultimately— 
perchance  after  centuries  of  anarchy  and  bloodshed — the 
complete  extinction  of  republican  institutions  in  this 
hemisphere  and  the  establishment  of  several  military  des 
potisms  in  its  stead,  as  grinding  and  oppressive  as  the 
world  has  known,  would  have  taken  place.  The  bringing 
of  this  fearful  struggle  of  arms  to  a  peaceful  close,  in  a 
manner  consistent  both  with  the  preservation  of  the  Fed 
eral  Union  and  the  continued  existence  of  popular  freedom, 
may  be  therefore  justly  recognized  as  a  result  over  which 
the  friends  of  constitutional  liberty  throughout  the  world 
might  be  expected  to  rejoice. 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1864  the  absolute  neces 
sity  of  an  early  peace  began  to  be  deeply  felt  throughout 
the  States  of  the  South.  Lee,  after  a  succession  of  as 
bloody  and  destructive  battles  as  any  on  record,  had  been 
driven  with  his  gallant  but  almost  ruined  army  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Petersburg,  where  he  was  still  doing 
what  he  could,  with  his  greatly  inferior  forces,  to  hold 
Grant  in  check  and  save  Richmond  from  the  grasp  of  this 
able  and  enterprising  commander.  Joe  Johnston,  for  two 


302  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

months,  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  most  gallant  armies 
that  has  ever  contended  for  victory  upon  a  field  of  battle, 
had  been  able  to  retard  the  advance  of  Sherman  upon 
Atlanta.  How  much  longer  he  might  have  succeeded  in 
doing  so  had  not  Jeft'  Davis,  with  a  most  stupid  and  blun 
dering  audacity,  removed  him,  can  not  now  be  determined. 
Hood,  who  had  been  substituted  for  Johnston,  after  hav 
ing  been  signally  defeated  by  Sherman,  yielded  up  Atlanta, 
retreated  toward  Xewnan,  and  undertook,  under  the  di 
rection  of  the  enterprising  chief  of  the  Confederate  cause, 
his  famous  and  most  disastrous  Tennessee  campaign. 
Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and  North  Carolina  all  lay  now 
exposed  to  immediate  invasion,  and  Sherman  soon  com 
menced  his  fearful  march  toward  the  sea-shore.  It  was 
plain  to  almost  every  man  in  Richmond  that  whenever 
General  Sherman  should  advance  through  the  States  just 
mentioned,  and  reach,  in  his  victorious  march,  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Richmond,  Lee  would  be  compelled  to  surren 
der.  Such  innumerable  blunders  had  been  committed 
under  the  management  of  the  shallow  and  egotistical  Da 
vis  during  the  immediately  preceding  twelve  months,  in 
the  administration,  both  of  civil  and  military  affairs,  that 
only  a  few  individuals,  of  an  over-hopeful  temperament? 
then  supposed  it  possible  that  the  struggle  could  possibly 
last  beyond  the  first  of  the  coming  May.  When  General 
Joseph  E.  Johnston  returned  from  the  South,  after  hav 
ing  been  so  unwisely  deprived  of  his  command  by  Mr. 
Davis,  I  made  it  my  business  to  consult  him  formally  in 
regard  to  the  possibility  of  continuing  the  war  then  in 
progress,  under  the  disadvantageous  circumstances  at  that 
time  existing.  This  able  and  renowrned  commander  spoke 
with  the  most  perfect  frankness  upon  the  subject,  and  de 
clared  that  the  prolongation  of  the  war  would  evidently 
depend  upon  the  rapidity  or  tardiness  of  Sherman's  move 
ments,  and  that  whenever  he  should  get  within  the  con 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  303 

fines  of  Virginia  the  fall  of  Richmond  must  necessarily 
occur.  I  asked  him  whether  he  at  all  doubted — now  that 
the  army  which  he  had  lately  commanded  was  sent,  ap 
parently,  on  an  objectless  mission  to  Tennessee — that 
Sherman  would  be  able  to  march,  almost  without  inter 
ruption,  through  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and  North 
Carolina,  to  the  southern  boundary  of  Virginia.  lie  an 
swered  promptly  that  he  did  not.  Then  it  was  that  I  re 
solved  to  make  a  last  desperate  effort  in  the  Confederate 
Congress  to  obtain  the  adoption  of  a  resolution  asserting 
the  necessity  of  taking  immediate  steps  toward  securing 
a  just  and  honorable  peace.  The  difficulties  which  I  en 
countered  on  this  occasion  I  have  already  heretofore  suffi 
ciently  explained. 

Several  months  before  this  period,  having  discovered,  on 
reading  the  Washington  newspapers,  that  the  attempt  to 
establish  an  imperial  government  in  Mexico  was  awaken 
ing  great  opposition  in  the  two  houses  of  the  National 
Legislature,  and  that  a  good  deal  had  been  said  by  seve 
ral  members  of  that  body  in  support  of  the  celebrated 
Monroe  doctrine,  it  seemed  to  me  that  an  opportunity 
was  presented  of  paving  the  way  to  the  restovation  of 
amicable  relations  between  the  people  of  the  North  and 
those  of  the  South  by  a  formal  assertion  in  the  Confed 
erate  Congress  of  the  great  American  principle  which 
constituted  the  leading  feature  of  that  same  doctrine. 
Accordingly  I  introduced  a  series  of  resolutions  on  this 
subject,  and  delivered  in  support  of  them  a  long  and  zeal 
ous  speech.  These  resolutions  were  referred  to  the  Commit 
tee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  where  they  met  with  most  serious 
opposition  from  a  very  unexpected  quarter — -Mr.  William 
C.  Rives,  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  expressing  the 
most  decided  objection  to  the  proposed  movement. 

This  action  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Rives  was  the  more  sur 
prising  to  me  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  he  had  formerly, 


304  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCED. 

when  in  the  National  House  of  Representatives,  been  a 
very  warm  supporter  of  the  Monroe  doctrine.  With  a 
view  to  counteracting  his  influence  T  got  a  copy  of  the 
speech  which  he  ha<l  delivered  on  this  subject  more  than 
twenty  years  previous,  and  read  several  extracts  from  it 
in  the  hearing  of  the  body  of  which  we  were  both  of  us 
then  members.  I  regret  to  say  that  this  conduct  of  mine 
gave  this  worthy  and  accomplished  gentleman  some 
offense,  which  I  am  sure  was  not  at  all  intended  by  me. 
I  seize  the  opportunity  of  saying  here  that  Mr.  Rives,  at 
this  period  of  his  life,  was  in  feeble  health,  seemed  to 
labor  under  something  like  habitual  depression  of  spirits, 
and  had  to  a  great  extent  lost  that  energy  of  character 
for  which  in  earlier  life  he  had  been  given  so  much  credit. 
He  had  evidently  ceased  to  have  much  confidence  in  his 
own  mental  resources,  and,  greatly  to  the  astonishment  of 
many,  became1  in  a  few  weeks  after  lie  bad  taken  bis  seat 
among  us  a  thorough  devotee  of  Mr.  Davis  and  a  sup 
porter  of  nearly  all  his  eccentric  and  fanciful  notions. 
Ilis  principal  speech  in  the  1  Louse  of  Representatives  was 
made  in  support  of  the  proposition  to  give  Mr.  Davis  un 
limited  power  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  when 
ever  and  wherever  he  pleased.  This  veteran  statesman 
was  immediately  responded  to  by  Colonel  Baldwin,  of 
Staunton,in  one  of  the  clearest,  most  manly,  and  eloquent 
speeches  I  ever  heard,  during  the  progress  of  which  Mr. 
Rives  evinced  a  marked  restlessness  and  chagrin  which 
it  was  really  painful  to  behold.  It  is  but  just  to  this  last- 
named  gentleman  to  state  that  about  the  period  of  the 
arrival  of  the  well-known  Francis  I*.  Blair  in  Richmond, 
upon  his  most  humane  and  patriotic  mission  of  pacifica 
tion,  he  began  to  express  himself  much  more  approvingly 
of  the  Monroe  doctrine.  Whether  this  was  owing  to  Mr. 
Blair's  inspiration  or  to  some  other  cause  I  have  never 
been  able  to  learn. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  305 

Anterior  to  my  own  departure  from  Richmond  in  quest 
of  peace,  and  at  the  most  gloomy  and  alarming  period  in 
the  history  of  the  Confederate  struggle,  one  or  two  inci 
dents  occurred  which,  though  perhaps  not  very  important 
in  themselves,  it  will  he  proper  here  to  mention.  Know 
ing  Mr.  Stephens'  opposition  to  several  of  the  leading 
measures  recommended  by  Mr.  Davis,  and  having  good 
reason  to  believe  that  he  was  beginning  to  be  seriously 
distrustful  as  to  the  result  of  the  war,  I  visited  him  one 
evening  for  the  purpose  of  holding  with  him,  should  he 
choose  to  allow  it,  a  full  and  frank  conference.  lie  re 
ceived  me  with  much  civility,  and  entered  into  a  conver 
sation  with  me,  touching  the  existing  condition  of  affairs, 
which  I  can  never  forget.  lie  did  not  hestitate  to  declare 
his  painful  want  of  confidence  in  Mr.  Davis'  capacity,  and 
declared  in  very  emphatic  language  the  apprehension 
which  he  began  to  feel  that,  unless  more  statesmanship 
should  be  displayed,  the  war  must  soon  terminate  in  dis 
appointment  and  disgrace.  I  then  ventured  to  suggest  to 
him  that,  as  Mr.  'Davis  and  his  confidential  advisers 
seemed  not  to  be  at  all  aware  of  the  real  dangers  of  the 
moment,  and  were  evidently  averse  to  all  movements 
looking  to  the  restoration  of  peace,  there  was  no  possi 
bility  of  bringing  the  war  to  an  end  unless  some  man  of 
known  character  and  influence  would  take  upon  himself 
the  responsibility  of  proceeding  to  Washington  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  Cab 
inet  would  not  be  willing  to  grant  terms  of  reconcilement 

O  O 

to  the  Southern  States  and  people  to  which  they  could, 
without  loss  of  honor,  accede.  I  even  went  so  far  on  this 
occasion  as  to  avow  to  him  my  conviction  that  he  was 
himself  the  man  who,  above  all  others,  would  be  most 
suitable  to  undertake  this  dangerous  and  important  em 
bassy,  adding  that  if  he  could  bring  back  with  him  a 
guarantee  as  to  the  future  such  as  I  was  well  satisfied 
20  R 


300  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Mr.  Lincoln  would  be  willing  to  give,  I  did  not  at  all 
doubt  that  the  States  and  people  of  the  South  would  at 
once  desist  from  the  further  prosecution  of  the  war,  what 
ever  might  be  the  views  and  wishes  of  Mr.  Davis,  who,  it 
was  evident,  would  never  consent  to  any  peace  which 
would  deprive  him  of  the  power  and  official  consequence 
which  he  was  then  enjoying.  Though  Mr.  Stephens  did 
not  in  terms  dissent  from  the  views  which  I  had  deemed 
it  my  duty  to  enunciate,  yet  his  caution  was  such  that  he 
did  not  by  any  means  so  far  commit  himself  as  to  author 
ize  anything  like  a  confident  hope  that  he  would  himself 
•i 

undertake  the  high  and  perilous  task  to  which  I  had  in 
vited  him ;  so  I  took  my  leave  of  this  sagacious,  upright, 
and  over-fastidious  statesman  ;  nor  did  I  see  him  again 
until  the  war  was  over,  when  I  found  him  in  Washing 
ton  as  a  Senator-elect  from  Georgia,  seeking  admission  to 
a  position  which  he  would  doubtless  have  much  adorned 
had  he  been  once  firmly  seated  as  a  member  of  that  dig 
nified  body,  where  there  are  so  many  and  such  powerful 
incentives  constantly  supplied  to  the  pursuance  of  a  calm, 
dignified,  and  truly  conservative  course. 

It  was  early  in  the  month  of  January,  1865,  that  the 
venerable  Francis  L\  Blair  reached  the  city  of  Richmond. 
A  man  better  suited  in  all  respects  than  this  gentleman 
for  the  delicate  and  difficult  duty  which  he  had  so  gen 
erously  assumed  could  not  well  be  imagined.  He  was, 
and  is  yet,  a  person  of  most  active  and  vigorous  intellect ; 
of  long  and  varied  public  experience,  possessing  a  pro 
found  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  capable  in  an 
eminent  degree  of  adapting  himself  to  the  peculiar  tem 
pers  and  tastes  of  those  w,ith  whom  he  may  be  thrown 
into  contact,  lie  knew  Jefferson  Davis  well,  perhaps  no 
man  knew  him  better,  and  was,  of  course,  cognizant  of 
his  extreme  selfishness  of  character,  his  insatiable  ambi 
tion,  his  surpassing  vanity,  and  his  extreme  tenacity  of 


GASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES,  o 

power.  Mr.  Blair  hoped  that  in  the  then  almost  ruined 
condition  of  Confederate  affairs  he  might  find  it  possible 
to  win  Mr.  Davis  over  to  the  side  of  peace  by  opening  to 
him  an  opportunity  of  ending  the  war  with  credit  to 
himself  and  his  associates,  and  of  taking  a  conspicuous 
part  in  the  acquisition  of  the  vast  territorial  domain  then 
in  the  lawless  occupancy  of  the  imperial  autocrat,  Maxi 
milian,  who  had  been  foisted  by  the  criminal  machina 
tions  of  Louis  Napoleon  upon  a  reluctant  but  powerless 
people.  Had  Mr.  Blair  known  at  the  time  how  deeply 
and  irretrievably  committed  Mr.  Davis  and  his  especial  ser 
vitors  in  Richmond  were  to  the  ambitious  schemes  of  the 
French  Emperor,  and  that  our  executive  chief  was  him 
self  confidently  expecting  that  the  time  would  yet  arrive 
when  .Napoleon  the  Little,  Maximilian  the  Unfortunate, 
and  Jefferson  Davis  the  Equivocator,  would,  by  conjoint 
and  consociated  rule,  control  the  destiny  of  two  hemis 
pheres,  he  would  hardly  have  expected  to  succeed  in  his 
noble  and  well-planned  mission.  Mr.  Stephens,  in  the 
second  volume  of  that  very  remarkable  book  which  he 
has  lately  given  to  the  public,  reveals  many  particulars 
connected  with  this  epoch,  of  which,  before  its  appear 
ance,  but  few  had  become  authentically  advised.  He 
says,  in  relation  to  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Blair  in  Rich 
mond  at  the  time  referred  to : 

The  arrival  of  this  distinguished  personage,  who  was  unquestionably 
the  real  Warwick  of  the  party  then  in  power  at  Washington,  caused  no 
little  sensation.  What  could  have  brought  him  there?  and  what  was 
his  business?'  These  were  the  inquiries  of  almost  every  one.  lie  was 
immediately  in  close  and  private  conversation  with  Mr.  Davis.  After 
remaining  a  few  days  he  returned.  Nothing',  however,  touching  the 
object  of  his  visit  escaped  from  the  Executive  closet,  or  got  to  the  pub 
lic  in  any  way.  The  surprise  occasioned  by  his  first  visit  was  even 
increased  by  a  second  a  few  days  afterward,  lie  was  again  in  consul 
tation  with  Mr.  Davis,  and  again  returned.  The  same  mystery  con 
tinued  to  hang  over  tl.e  object  of  his  mission. 

Mr.  Stephens  then  goes  on  to  say  that  it  was  "in  these 


,°,ns  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCED. 

interviews  between  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Blair  that  the 
Hampton  Roads  conference  originated."  He  further 
states  that  u  on  the  day  after  Mr.  Blair's  tinal  departure 
he  was  himself  sent  for  by  Mr.  Davis,  with  a  request  to 
meet  him  at  a  stated  hour,  on  special  and  important  busi 
ness."'  This  message  "  came  through  Mr.  Hunter/'  as  Mr. 
Stephens  says,  who  wras  doubtless  Mr.  Davis'  sole  confi 
dential  adviser  at  this  juncture,  and  who  was  as  much 
averse  as  Mr.  Davis  himself  to  any  pacification  with  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  which  should  be  based 
upon  a  frank  and  loyai  submission  to  the  constituted  au 
thorities  of  the  Republic.  Neither  of  these  gentlemen 
intended,  before  they  should  be  forced  to  do  so,  to  yield 
up  the  chimerical  and  fantastic  project  of  a  separate  and 
independent  republic,  founded  upon  the  absurd  and  im 
practicable  dogma  of  secession.  Neither  of  them  had  the 
least  idea  of  confessing  the  grievous  political  errors  which 
they  had  been  committing,  and  abandoning  the  execution 
of  a  scheme  of  separate  empire  for  which  they  had  been 
both  active  and  insidiously  plotting  for  some  twenty 
years  or  more.  How  could  they  be  expected  to  give  their 
adhesion  to  the  Monroe  doctrine,  when  this  would  bring 
the  Confederate  armies  into  collision  with  those  of  Maxi 
milian  and  Napoleon,  for  whose  ultimate  aid  they  were 
confidently  looking  in  the  struggle  which  was  then  going 
on  with  the  wise  and  paternal  Government  of  Washing 
ton? 

In  the  interview  between  Mr.  Stephens  and  Mr.  Davis, 
which  afterward  occurred,  as  Mr.  Stephens  tells  us,  Mr. 
Davis  made  known  to  him  that  "Mr.  Blair,  in  a  verbal 
and  most  confidential  manner,  had  suggested  to  him  a 
course  by  which  a  suspension  of  hostilities  might  be 
effected.  This  was  to  be  done  by  a  secret  military  <-onven- 
t('on  between  the  belligerents,  embracing  another  object, 
which  was  the  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  in 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  309 

the  prevention  of  the  establishment  of  the  then  projected 
empire  in  Mexico  by  France.  Mr.  Davis  stated  that  Mr. 
Blair  had  given  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  result  of  what 
he  proposed  would  be  the  ultimate  restoration  of  the 
Union,  which  he  greatly  desired,  and  that  it  was  much 
more  in  accordance  with  his  wishes  that  it  should  be 
effected  in  this  way  than  by  a  continued  prosecution  of 
the  war  to  its  extreme  results." 

No  one  can  read  Mr.  Stephens'  account  of  this  inter 
view  without  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Davis' 
only  object  in  pursuing  the  course  adopted  by  him  at  this 
juncture  was  to  secure  a  cessation  of  hostilities  until  he 
could  in  some  way  replenish  the  Confederate  armies,  and 
obtain  military  aid  from  France,  also  through  Mexico, 
concerning  which  there  was  much  talk  at  the  time  in 
Richmond,  as  well  as  of  obtaining  the  aid  of  thirty  thou 
sand  Poles,  for  whose  co-operation  active  negotiations  had 
been  for  some  time  going  on.  Whether  Mr.  Stephens 
supposed  that  Mr.  Davis  was  himself  sincere  in  entering 
into  the  discussions  with  Mr.  Blair  which  have  been 
referred  to  it  is  difficult  at  present  to  determine.  But 
that  Mr.  Davis,  when  he  agreed  to  send  commissioners  to 
the  Hampton  Roads  meeting,  had  no  idea  that  any  result 
would  be  attained  beyond  the  temporary  armistice  which 
he  so  much  desired,  is  made  evident  by  various  facts, 
among  which  may  be  mentioned  the  following :  First, 
the  letter  of  Mr.  Davis  of  the  12th  of  January,  1865,  to 
Mr.  Blair,  (which  was  to  be  shown  to  Mr.  Lincoln  on.  his 
return  to  Washington,)  concludes  with  this  remarkable 
sentence :  "  Notwithstanding  the  rejection  of  our  former 
offers,  I  would,  if  you  could  promise  that  a  commission, 
minister,  or  other  agent  would  be  received,  appoint  one 
immediately,  and  renew  the  effort  to  enter  into  a  confer 
ence  with  a  view  to  secure  peace  to  the  two  countries." 

This  is,  perhaps,  .one  of  the  most  puerile  and  contempti- 


310  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ble  devices  ever  resorted  to,  even  by  this  Prince  of  Man 
agers,  in  order  to  delude  an  honest  and  confiding  Chief 
Magistrate.  Could  he  have  secured  a  letter  or  declara 
tion  from  Mr.  Lincoln  recognizing  the  existence  of  "two 
countries,"  instead  of  one  undivided  and  indivisible  Re 
public,  why  then  lie  would  have  obtained  for  the  Confed 
erate  Government  just  such  an  attitude  before  the  civil 
ized  Powers  of  the  world  as  would  have  justified  him  in 
asking  immediate  recognition  at  their  hands.  To  have 
supposed  it  possible  to  entrap  two  such  astute  personages 
as  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward  by  so  clumsy  an  expe 
dient  argues  a  want  of  discernment  calculated  to  awaken 
both  pity  and  contempt.  Mr.  Lincoln's  response  to  this 
(addressed  also  to  Mr.  .Blair)  is  truly  a  masterpiece. 
Here  it  is : 

WASHINGTON,  January,  18(15. 
/•'.  /'.  Ithir,  Es,,.: 

SIR  :  You  having  shown  me  Mr.  Davis*  letter  to  you  of  the  12th  in 
stant,  yon  may  say  to  him  that  I  have  constantly  heen.  am  now,  and 
shall  continue  ready  to  receive  anyajjent  whom  he  or  any  other  person 
now  resisting  the  national  authority  may  informally  send  me,  with  a 
view  of  securing  peace  to  our  common  country. 

Second.  The  second  conclusive  proof  that  Mr.  Davis 
was  not  expecting  or  desiring  peace  on  the  basis  of  a 
restoration  of  the  Union  is  supplied  by  the  characteristic 
letter  of  instruction  given  to  the  three  commissioners  dis 
patched  by  him  to  Hampton  Roads.  It  runneth  thus: 

1'ICHMOND,  January  28,  1865. 

In  conformity  with  the  letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  which  the  foregoing 
is  ,1  copy,  you  are  to  proceed  to  Washington  city  for  an  informal  con 
ference  with  him  upon  the  issues  involved  in  the  existing  war,  and  lor 
the  purpose  of  securing  peace  to  the  tiro  countries. 

"Still  harping  on  my  daughter!"  Now,  Mr.  Davis 
knew  perfectly  well  when  he  sent  his  three  commissioners 
to  Hampton  Roads  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  peace 
except  on  the  basis  of  submission  to  the  authority  of  the 
Federal  Government.  He  knew  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  311 

put  his  foot  firmly  down  on  that  important  point.  He 
kne\\  further  that  were  Mr.  Lincoln  even  to  violate  his 
oath  of  office,  and  abnegate  all  his  antecedent  declarations 
on  this  subject,  it  would  not  he  in  his  power  to  liberate 
the  people  of  the  South  from  the  obligation  of  obedience 
to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  Union  ;  and  yet  did 
Mr.  Davis  deliberately  tie  up  the  hands  of  his  commis 
sioners  in  regard  to  this  all  vital  matter.  He  gave  them 
no  power  to  treat  except  upon  the  basis  of  Southern  inde 
pendence.  It  is  really  wonderful  how  it  happened  that 
two  such  high-minded  and  enlightened  statesmen  as  Mr. 
Stephens  and  Judge  Campbell  accepted  so  humiliating  a 
position  at  the  hands  of  a  cold-blooded  and  unscrupulous 
political  hypocrite.  The  conduct  of  Mr.  Hunter  was  in. 
deed  in  character.  He  had  been  a  secessionist  of  the  most 
extreme  type  from  the  days  of  early  manhood.  He  bad 
foisted  Davis  upon  the  Pierce  administration  with  a  view 
to  strengthening  the  secession  faction  of  the  South  by  the 
bestowal  upon  them  of  official  patronage.  lie  had  never 
ventured  to  think  for  himself  in  opposition  to  Mr. 
Davis  from  the  beginning  of  the  war  up  to  that  very  mo 
ment.  He  was,  indeed,  a  man  of  considerable  accomplish 
ments,  not  at  all  deficient,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  strength 
of  understanding,  though  without  a  particle  of  genius. 
He  was  tardy  and  sluggish  in  his  movements,  full  of  am 
bition,  though  without  the  boldness  to  sustain  his  lofty 
aspirations;  selfish,  crafty,  and  contriving  beyond  any 
man  of  his  native  capacity  whom  I  have  known.  It  is 
most  manifest  that  he  went  to  Hampton  Roads,  not  to 
facilitate  a  just  and  honorable  peace  such  as  Mr.  Blair 
had  proposed,  but  to  obstruct  it ;  not  to  give  renewed 
sanction  and  binding  force  to  the  Monroe  doctrine,  but  to 
undermine  and  overthrow  it.  In  other  words,  he  went, 
as  the  only  one  of  the  peace  commissioners  enjoying  the 


312  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

full  confidence  of  Mr.  Davis,  as  a  t%  marplot "  and  a  mis 
chief-maker. 

All  the  particulars  reported  by  Mr.  Stephens,  in  his  ac 
count  of  the  Hampton  Roads  negotiations,  are  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  view  here  presented. 

There  was  one  other  purpose  held  in  view  by  Mr.  Davis 
in  sending  commissioners  to  Hampton  Roads.  The  people 
of  the  Confederate  States  were  getting  heartily  sick  of  the 
war.  Alarming  movements  had  taken  place  in  various 
localities  indicating  a  determination  to  abandon  a  scheme 
of  armed  opposition  to  the  Government  which  seemed  to 
promise  no  earthly  benefit  to  any  human  being  save  to 
Jeff.  Davis  and  his  special  allies  and  supporters.  Deser 
tions  from  the  Confederate*  armies  were  to  be  counted  by 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  Resolutions  looking  to 
l>eace  had  been  introduced  in  Congress  by  myself  and 
others,  which  had  been  advocated  with  much  zeal  and 
eloquence.  Davis  had  himself  to  pretend  that  he  too  de 
sired  peace.  He  had  to  do  more  ;  it  had  become  necessary 
that  he  should  have  it  in  his  power  to  assert  with  seem 
ing  truth  that  he  had  made  strenuous  efforts  for  peace, 
and  had  found  Mr.  Lincoln  unwilling  to  grant  it  except 
on  terms  alike  ruinous  and  degrading  to  the  South,  lie 
would  then  have  it  in  his  power  te5  "  fire  the  Southern 
heart  "  anew,  and  induce  still  greater  efforts  on  the  part 
of  a  generous  and  heroic  people  to  save  themselves  and 
their  families  from  the  worst  horrors  that  wait  upon  war 
in  its  most  ferocious  and  destructive  character. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  follow  Mr.  Stephens'  interesting 
narrative  in  all  its  minuter  details.  It  is  sufficient  to  say 
here  that  every  facility  was  afforded  by  General  Grant 
and  his  subordinates  to  the  Peace  Commissioners  seeking 

o 

an  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward  at  Hamp 
ton  Roads.  They  stopped  at  General  Grant's  headquar 
ters  several  days,  where  he  says  they  were  most  kindly 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  313 

treated.  "He  provided  us,"  says  Mr.  Stephens,  "with 
comfortable  quarters  on  board  of  one  of  his  dispatch  boats. 
The  more  I  became  acquainted  with  him  the  more  I  be 
came  thoroughly  impressed  with  the  very  extraordinary 
combination  of  rare  elements  of  character  which  he  exhib 
ited.  During  this  time  he  met  us  frequently,  and  con 
versed  freely  upon  various  subjects — riot  much  upon  our 
mission.  I  saw,  however,  very  clearly,  that  he  was  very 
anxious  for  the  proposed  conference  to  take  place,  and 
from  all  that  was  said  I  inferred — whether  correctly  or 
not  I  do  not  know — that  he  was  fully  apprised  of  the  pro 
posed  object.  He  was,  without  doubt,  exceedingly  anxious 
for  a  termination  of  th<j  war  and  the  return  of  peace  and 
harmony  throughout  the  country.  It  was  through  his 
instrumentality  mainly  that  Mr.  Lincoln  finally  consented 
to  meet  us  at  Fortress  Monroe,  as  the  correspondence  re 
ferred  to  shows." 

This  statement  does,  indeed,  present,  General  Grant  to 
view  in  a  most  amiable  and  interesting  light.  A  more 
trustworthy  witness  of  his  virtues  than  Mr.  Stephens  the 
Republic  would  be  incapable  of  supplying,  and  it  can  not 
but  be  gratifying  to  every  true-spirited  American  patriot 
that  the  high  personage  thus  lauded  has  done  nothing 
since  which  is  not  fully  in  unison  with  the  noble  example 
set  by  him  on  this  most  grave  and  interesting  occasion. 

The  interview  between  Messrs.  Lincoln  and  Seward 
on  the  one  side  and  the  Confederate  Peace  Commissioners 
on  the  other  took  place  "  in  the  saloon  of  the  steamer,  on 
board  of  which  were  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Seward,  and  which 
lay  at  anchor  at  Fortress  Monroe."  Mr.  Stephens  con 
tinues:  "The  Commissioners  were  conducted  into  the 
saloon  first.  Soon  after,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward  en 
tered."  Now  commenced  the  interchange  of  views,  con 
cerning  which  it  is  only  important  now  to  notice  the 
principal  points  of  discussion. 


314:  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  being  asked  the  question  by  Mr. 
Stephens  whether  there  was  "  no  way  of  putting  an  end  to 
present  trouble,  and  bringing  about  a  restoration  of  gene 
ral  good  fee' ing  and  harmony,"  he  answered  "  that  there 
was  but  one  way  that  he  knew  of,  and  that  was  for  those 
who  were  resisting  the  laws  of  the  Union  to  cease  that 
resistance.  All  the  trouble  came  from  an  armed  resistance 
against  the  national  authority.'' 

In  the  further  progress  of  the  conversation  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  that  "  no  arrangement  could  be  made  on  the  line  sug 
gested  by  Mr.  Blair  without  a  previous  assurance  that 
the  Union  was  to  be  ultimately  restored;  in  other  words, 
that  the  armistice  desired  would  be  granted,  and  a  com 
pact  be  entered  into  by  both  parties  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  Monroe  policy,  provided  a  "  previous  pledge  " 
should  be  given  "  that  the  Union  was  to  be  ultimately  re 
stored." 

Upon  Mr.  Stephens  urging  that  a  suspension  of  hostili 
ties  should  take  place  with  a  view  to  the  enforcement  of 
the  Monroe  policy,  without  any  previous  pledge  of  the 
ultimate  restoration  of  the  Union,  trusting  to  the  proba 
bility  existing  that  such  a  result  might,  in  the  process  of 
time,  be  attained,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  "with  considerable 
earnestness  that  he  could  entertain  no  proposition  for 
ceasing  active  military  operations  which  was  not  based 
upon  a  pledge  first  given  for  the  ultimate  restoration  of 
the  Union.  lie  had  considered  the  question  of  an  armi 
stice  fully,  and  could  not  give  his  consent  to  any  proposi 
tion  of  that  sort  on  the  basis  suggested.  The  settlement 
of  our  existing  difficulties  was  a  question  now  of  supreme 
importance,  and  the  only  basis  on  which  he  would  enter 
tain  a  proposition  for  a  settlement  was  the  recognition 
and  re-establishment  of  the  national  authority  throughout 
the  land." 

After  a  good  deal  of  general  discussion  between  Mr, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  315 

Stephens  and  Mr.  Beward,  in  which  I  do  not  perceive  any 
new  ideas  to  have  been  advanced  on  either  side,  and  after 
some  little  allusion  to  the  modus  opemndi  of  an  armistice, 
in  case  one  should  he  agreed  upon,  Mr.  Hunter  seems  to 
have  considered  that  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  throw 
a  little  cold  water  upon  the  idea  of  co-operation  for  the 
enforcement  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  Mr.  Stephens 
reports  him  accordingly  as  saying  that  "  there  was  not 
unanimity  in  the  South  upon  the  subject  of  undertaking 
the  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  it  was  not 
probable  that  any  arrangement  could  be  made  by  which 
the  Confederates  would  agree  to  send  any  portion  of  their 
army  into  Mexico." 

Mr.  Stephens  tells  us  that  "  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Sew- 
ard  stated  that  the  feeling  in  the  North  was  very  strong 
for  maintaining  the  Monroe  doctrine."  I  undertake  now 
to  say  very  deliberately  that  there  never  wras  a  time  when 
the  people  of  the  South  would  not  have  been  ready  to  arm 
almost  unanimously  in  support  of  the  great  American 
principle  embodied  therein,  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Hunter  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

It  was  several  times  during  this  interview  very  emphati 
cally  declared  by  Mr.  Lincoln  that  the  Southern  States 
and  people  could  obtain  peace  "  by  disbanding  their  armies 
and  permitting  the  National  authorities  to  resume  their 
functions." 

Mr.  Seward  declared  on  this  occasion  that  if  the  Con 
federate  armies  were  disbanded,  u  as  to  all  questions  in 
volving  rights  of  property  the  courts  would  determine, 
and  that  Congress  would,  no  doubt,  be  liberal  in  making 
restitution  of  confiscated  property,  or  providing  indemnity 
after  the  excitement  of  the  times  had  passed  off." 

Mr.  Stephens  says  :  "  I  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  what  would 
be  the  status  of  the  slave  population  in  the  Confederate 
States  which  had  not  then  become  free  under  his  procla- 


31  fi  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

mation  ;  or,  in  other  words,  what  effect  that  proclamation 
would  have  upon  the  entire  hlaek  population  '.'  Would  it 
he  held  to  emancipate  the  whole,  or  only  those  who  had 
at  the  time  the  war  ended  become  actually  free  under  it  ? 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  was  a  judicial  question.  How 
the  courts  would  decide  it  he  did  not  know  and  could 
give  no  answer.  His  own  opinion  was  that  as  the  procla 
mation  was  a  war  measure,  and  would  have  effect  only 
from  its  being  an  exercise  of  the  war  power,  as  soon  as  the 
war  ceased  it  would  be  inoperative  for  the  future.  It 
would  be  held  to  apply  only  to  such  slaves  as  had  come 
under  its  operation  while  it  was  in  active  exercise.  *  * 

"  Mr.  Seward  said  there  were  only  about  two  hundred 
thousand  slaves  who,  up  to  that  time,  had  come  under  the 
actual  operation  of  the  proclamation,  and  who  were  then 
in  the  enjoyment  of  freedom  under  it  ;  so  if  the  war  should 
then  cease  the  status  of  much  the  larger  portion  of  the 
States  would  be  subject  to  judicial  construction.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  sustained  Mr.  Seward  as  to  the  number  of  slaves  who 
were  then  in  the  actual  enjoyment  of  their  freedom  under 
the  proclamation.'' 

Mr.  Seward  likewise  produced  a  copy  of  what  is  now  so 
well  known  as  the  thirteenth  Constitutional  amendment, 
adopted  by  Congress  a  day  or  two  before  this  interview, 
which  he  significantly  suggested,  being  a  war  measure, 
should  the  war  then  cease,  might  not  be  adopted  by  a 
sufficient  number  of  States  to  make  it  a  part  of  the  Con 
stitution. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  according  to  Mr.  Stephens'  statement,  ex 
pressed  the  opinion  that  all  the  States  of  the  South  then 
engaged  in  war  would,  should  the  war  cease  at  once,  be 
immediately  taken  back  into  the  Union  upon  their  orig 
inal  footing. 

Toward  the  close  of  this  remarkable  scene  Mr.  Hunter 
interposed,  and  avowed  the  opinion  that,  should  the  South 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  317 

submit  to  such  terms  as  were  now  proposed,  it  would 
amount  to  "  nothing  but  an  unconditional  surrender."  To 
this  Mr.  Seward  promptly  responded,  says  Mr.  Stephens, 
by  "  insisting  that  no  words  like  unconditional  surrender 
had  been  used,  or  any  importing,  or  justly  implying  deg 
radation,  or  humiliation  even,  of  the  Confederate  States. 
He  wished  this  to  be  borne  in  mind."  Mr.  Hunter  re 
peated  his  view  of  the  subject  and  asserted  that  "  uncon 
ditional  submission  was  demanded  of  the  Southern  States 
to  the  mercy  of  the  conquerors." 

"  Mr.  Seward  replied  that  they  were  not  conquerors 
further  than  that  they  required  submission  to  the  laws," 
and  afterward  added,  that  "  the  Southern  people  and  the 
Southern  States  would  be  under  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  with  all  their  rights  secured  thereby  in 
the  same  wayHand  through  the  same  instrumentalities  as 
the  similar  rights  of  other  States  were. 

"  Mr.  Hunter  said :  But  you  make  no  agreement  that 
these  rights  will  be  so  held  and  secured. 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  so  far  as  the  confiscation  acts 
and  other  penal  acts  were  concerned,  their  enforcement 
was  left  entirely  with  him,  and  on  that  point  he  was  per 
fectly  willing  to  be  free  and  explicit,  and  on  his  assurance 
perfect  reliance  might  be  placed.  He  should  exercise  the 
power  of  the  Executive  with  the  utmost  liberality.  He 
went  on  to  say  that  he  would  be  willing  to  be  taxed  to 
remunerate  the  Southern  people  for  their  slaves.  He  be 
lieved  the  people  of  the  North  were  as  responsible  for 
slavery  as  the  people  of  the  South,  and  if  the  war  should 
then  cease,  with  the  voluntary  abolition  of  slavery  by  the 
States,  he  should  be  in  favor  individually  of  the  Govern 
ment  paying  a  fair  indemnity  for  the  loss  to  the  owners. 
He  said  he  believed  this  feeling  had  an  extensive  exist 
ence  at  the  North.  He  knew  some  who  were  in  favor  of 


318  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

an  appropriation  as  high  as  four  hundred  millions  of  dol 
lars  for  this  purpose.7' 

-*  #  *  *  *  •* 

"  Mr.  Sevvard  said  that  the  people  of  the  Xorth  were 
weary  of  the  war.  'They  desired  peace  and  a  restoration 
of  harmony,  and  he  helieved  they  would  he  willing  to 
pay  as  an  indemnity  for  the  slaves  what  would  be  re 
quired  to  conduct  the  war,  but  named  no  amount." 

Just  before  the  conference  came  to  a  close  Mr.  Stephens, 
as  he  states,  urged  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  the  propriety  of  re 
considering  the  subject  of  an  armistice;  which  he  promised 
to  do. 

On  the  arrival  of  the  commissioners  at  Richmond  they 
reported  all  these  particulars,  and  much  more  besides  of 
the  same  tenor,  to  Mr.  Davis  ;  in  the  face  of  which  he 
had  the  unparalleled  audacity  to  send  a  special  message 
to  the  Confederate  Congress,  declaring  in  terms  that  u  the 
enemy  refused  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  the  Confed 
erate  States,  or  any  one  of  them  separately,  or  to  give  to 
our  people  any  other  terms  or  guarantees  than  those 
which  a  conqueror  may  grant,  or  to  permit  us  to  have 
peace  on  any  other  basis  than  our  unconditional  submis 
sion  to  their  rule,"  &c.  He  also  convoked  a  public  meet 
ing  in  the  African  Church  at  Richmond,  to  which  meet 
ing  he  addressed  one  of  his  characteristic  specimens  of 
rhodomontade,  and,  by  the  most  shameless  false  state 
ments  as  to  all  that  had  occurred  between  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  his  commissioners  at  Hampton  Roads,  procured  the 
adoption  of  resolutions  pledging  the  people  of  the  South 
to  a  further  prosecution  of  hostilities,  which  resolutions 
would  never  have  received  the  popular  approval  in  any 
nook  or  corner  of  the  South  upon  a  full  knowledge  of  all 
the  extraordinary  facts  which  Mr.  Stephens  has  himself 
set  forth  in  the  book,  from  the  pages  of  which  I  have  been 
quoting  so  freely.  No  doubt  can  be  now  left  upon  the 


'CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES  319 

mind  of  any  one  that,  by  pursuing  the  course  which  has 
been  described,  Messrs.  Davis,  Hunter,  and  Benjamin,  the 
chief  actors  in  this  abominable  scene  of  falsehood  and  cruel 
deception,  made  themselves  responsible  for  all  the  inno 
cent  blood  afterward  shed  in  this  terrible  war,  for  all  the 
discredit  connected  with  the  formal  military  surrenders  to 
which  Generals  Lee,  Joe  Johnston,  Kirby  Smith,  and 
others  were  compelled  to  submit,  and  to  all  the  evils  of 
every  kind  of  which  the  unfortunate  South  has  had  such 
bitter  experience  in  the  last  eight  years.  With  these  ex 
traordinary  particulars  now  presented  to  the  consideration 
of  an  impartial  public,  who  will  blame  me  for  urging  a 
cessation  of  hostilities  on  the  part  of  the  Confederate 
States  and  people  in  the  winter  of  1864-'5,  and  a  prompt 
submission  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  land  ? 

Will  any  portion  of  the  Southern  people  ever  again  con 
sent  to  trust  their  dearest  rights  and  interests  in  the 
hands  of  the  men  who  have  thus  so  cruelly  and  unpardon- 
ably  betrayed  them  ? 


820  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXX. 

ABRAHAM     LINCOLN — THE     PEACE     NEGOTIATIONS— A     RESUME 
OF    THE    FACTS — WHERE    THE    BLAME    BELONGS. 

No  one,  I  am  persuaded,  can  take  a  fair  and  candid 
view  of  the  important  conference  at  Hampton  Roads  be 
tween  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  commissioners  sent  by  Mr. 
Davis  to  hold  intercourse  with  him  touching  the  grave 
and  delicate  matters  discussed  on  that  occasion,  and  avoid 
being  deeply  impressed  with  the  moderation  and  forbear 
ance  manifested  by  that  eminent  personage,  who  was  des 
tined  in  a  few  weeks  to  fall  a  victim  to  lawless  and  un 
provoked  violence,  nor  can  such  an  one  fail  to  be  pleased 
also  with  the  manly  and  amiable  commiseration  mani 
fested  by  him  for  the  sufferings  of  his  unfortunate 
brethren  of  the  South.  His  whole  demeanor  throughout 
this  memorable  scene  was  courteous,  urbane,  and  affec 
tionate.  He  uttered  not  a  word  which  could  give  reason 
able  offense  to  the  proudest  and  most  morbidly  sensitive 
man  to  whom  the  sunny  regions  so  ably  represented  be 
fore  him  had  ever  given  birth.  He  stated  terms  of  settle 
ment  which,  had  they  been  accepted,  would  at  once  have 
brought  back  all  the  States  then  in  insurrection  to  their 
original  footing  as  compeers  and  co-ordinate  members  of 
that  sublime  assemblage  of  free  and  happy  Common 
wealths,  from  whose  communion  they  had  so  causelessly 
departed.  All  confiscations  were  to  be  set  aside  or  in 
demnified  ;  all  other  penalties  which  had  been  incurred 
were  to  be  remitted.  The  number  of  slaves  set  free  by 
Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation,  as  was  satisfactorily  shown, 
would  not  probably  amount  to  more  than  the  number  of 
two  hundred  thousand,  and  the  slaveholders  of  the  South 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  821 

were  presently  to  receive  as  much  as  four  hundred  millions 
of  dollars  in  exchange  for  property  now  become  almost  ab 
solutely  valueless,  provided  their  own  good  sense  and 
philanthropic  feelings  should  prompt  them  voluntarily  to 
release  from  bondage  all  the  remainder  of  those  yet  pining 
in  servitude.  And  these  liberal  terms  were  offered  by 
those  whose  influence  was  such  as  to  give  the  fullest  as 
surance  that  whatever  stipulations  they  might  enter  into 
would  be  promptly  and  fairly  carried  into  operation,  and 
tendered,  too,  be  it  remembered,  to  those  who  had  not  the 
least  reason  to  hope  that  they  could  remain  unconquered 
even  for  sixty  days  longer.  There  is  scarcely  another 
such  instance  of  magnanimity  as  this  to  be  found  any 
where  recorded  in  history.  Mr.  Lincoln  on  this  occasion 
did  everything  that  he  could  possibly  do  to  avert  the  evils 
which  he  saw  were  about  to  fall  upon  his  unhappy  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  South,  except  uniting  with  them  in  the 
subversion  of  that  Union  which  he  had  solemnly  sworn 
to  support. 

When,  a  few  weeks  after,  he  was  in  the  city  of  Rich 
mond,  at  a  time  subsequent  to  the  memorable  surrender 
of  Lee,  his  conduct  was  so  benignant  and  compassionate 
as  to  provoke  the  criminatory  complaints  of  him  who  was 
soon  to  be  his  successor,  and  whose  whole  soul  was  now 
most  unhappily  on  fire  to  "  make  treason  odious." 

Nobody  can  at  this  time  doubt  that  if  President  Lin 
coln  had  been  permitted  to  live  long  enough  he  would 
have  granted  universal  pardon  to  those  of  the  South  who 
had  been  engaged  in  this  most  deplorable  war  ;  he  would 
have  done  what  he  could,  in  addition,  to  heal  all  the 
wounds  which  the  war  had  inflicted,  with  a  view  to  the 
restoration  of  that  general  prosperity  and  happiness  which 
had  been  in  days  past  so  richly  enjoyed.  Mr.  Lincoln 
seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  a  man  of  most  kindly  and 
sympathizing  temper,  free  from  all  groveling  selfishness, 
21  R  ' 


322  BASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

not  at  all  addicted  to  the  degrading  arts  of  demagogism, 
and  devoted  most  intensely  to  his  country  and  his  whole 
country.  He  was  doubtless  familiar  with  all  the  most 
shining  examples  of  clemency  and  magnanimity  which 
have  at  different  periods  adorned  the  annals  of  civilized 
nations,  alike  of  ancient  and  of  modern  times,  and  he  re 
coiled  instinctively  from  all  that  could  seriously  involve 
his  own  personal  dignity  or  compromise  the  honor  of  the 
great  nation  of  which  he  was  the  chosen  chief.  Xever 
could  he  have  consented  to  do  an  act  of  wanton  cruelty  or 
to  tritie  with  the  sensibilities  of  any  class  of  his  country 
men.  Had  he  been  once  fairly  placed  in  the  situation 
afterward  occupied  by  his  immediate  successor  he  would 
assuredly  have  given  to  the  world  the  fullest  evidence 
that  he  cordially  concurred  in  all  that  has  been  so  nobly 
expressed  by  the  immortal  bard  of  Avon  when  he  said  : 


The  quality  of  wm:y  is  not  xt 

It  falleth  like  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 

Upon  the  earth  beneath  ;  it  is  twice  blessed  ; 

It  blesseth  him  th:it  gives  and  him  that  takes  ; 

'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mighty  ;  it  becomes 

The  throned  monarch  better  that  his  crown  ; 

The  scepter  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power  ; 

The  attribute  to  awe  and  majesty. 

Wherein  doth  si:  the  dread  nnd  fear  of  kings; 

But  -mercy  is  above  this  sceptered  sway  ; 

It  is  enthroned  in  the  heart  of  king*; 

It  is  an  attribute  to  God  Himself. 

And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 

When  mercy  season  a  just  ice. 

That  such  a  person  as  this  should  have  been  so  cruelly 
thwarted  as  he  was  fated  to  be  (by  the  extraordinary 
course  adopted  by  Mr.  Davis  and  his  political  advisers)  in 
the  execution  of  his  generous  purposes  toward  the  States 
and  people  of  the  South  is  one  of  the  most  melancholy 
instances  of  political  fatuity  that  have  ever  occurred  : 
and  no  means  of  expiation  are  now  left  to  those  who  com- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

niitted  this  grievous  malefaction  by  which  the  criminality 
of  these  men  can  be  fully  atoned  for.  Had  Mr.  Davis 
dared  to  let  the  people  of  the  South  know  what  terms  of 
pacification  Mr.  Lincoln  had  really  ottered  to  them, 
twenty  days  could  not  possibly  have  elapsed  ere  their  own 
good  sense  and  their  yet  unextinguished  love  of  country 
would  have  forced  the  civil  agents  whom  they  had  chosen 
to  administer  their  affairs,  and  who  had  shamefully  mis 
represented  them,  to  make  peace  at  once  upon  the  gene 
rous  conditions  propounded.  Could  the  Confederate  Con 
gress  in  some  way  have  become  apprised  of  the  true  state 
of  things  then  existing,  they  would  certainly  have  im 
peached  and  deposed  Mr.  Davis  for  daring  to  expose  so 
recklessly  the  people  whom  they  represented  to  the  mul 
tiplied  evils  which  they  could  not  but  perceive  would 
very  soon  come  upon  them. 

By  every  constitution  of  government  in  this  country 
the  pardoning  power  is  recognized  as  the  chief  attribute 
of  the  Executive  Department,  and  it  is  in  the  honest  and 
manly  exercise  of  this  power  that  more  true  glory  is  to 
be  acquired  than  in  any  other  mode  that  can  be  specified. 
The  executive  chief  who  formally  abnegates  this  high  at 
tribute  of  sovereignty — who  fails  to  put  it  in  exercise  on 
all  suitable  occasions,  or  who  signally  abuses  it  in  any 
way,  may  be  justly  denounced  as  a  monstrous  offender 
against  the  dignity  and  welfare  of  the  community.  The 
legislative  department  of  such  a  government  as  ours 
which  obstinately  refuses  for  an  over-long  period  of 
time  to  restore  such  of  its  citizens  as  may  have  rebelled 
against  its  authority,  but  who,  afterward,  in  a  seasonable 
manner,  shall  have  voluntarily  placed  themselves  under 
the  control  of  the  violated  law,  can  not  but  be  held  seri 
ously  reprehensible  ;— though  this  unhappy  state  of  things 
lias,  in  point  of  fact,  repeatedly  occurred  heretofore  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 


324  GASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

The  experience  of  our  country  as  to  this  deeply  interesting 
matter  has  been  both  fortunate  and  unfortunate,  credita 
ble  and  discreditable.  In  regard  to  the  exercise  of  the 
pardoning  power,  all  our  Chief  Magistrates  up  to  the  ac 
cidental  elevation  to  the  Presidential  dignity  of  Andrew 
Johnson  have  seemed  to  entertain  exceedingly  correct 
views  touching  the  true  nature  and  use  of  this  exalted 
prerogative.  This  personage  seemed  to  understand  that 
the  pardoning  power  was  to  be  employed  by  him  simply 
as  a  means  of  conciliating  persons  of  known  influence, 
and  of  securing  the  increase  of  his  own  individual  popu 
larity.  His  first  grand  experiment  in  its  exercise  was  the 
calling  to  Washington  from  the  South  as  many  of  its  cit 
izens  as  owned  twenty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  prop 
erty,  by  pardoning  whom  he  hoped  ultimately  to  control 
the  political  action  of  the  whole  mass  of  the  humbler  in 
habitants  of  that  region.  Though  he  had  it  in  his  power, 
through  the  wise  provision  of  Congress,  to  issue  a  general 
proclamation  of  amnesty  to  those  lately  found  in  a  state 
of  rebellion,  he  ungraciously  declined  to  do  so,  and  even 
made  no  attempt  whatever  in  this  direction  until  Con 
gress  at  last  carneto  the  conclusion  that  he  was  an  unsafe 
depository  of  this  grand  attribute. 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  itself  initi 
ated  the  good  work  of  governmental  clemency,  and  a 
legislative  enactment  has  been  signed  by  an  upright 
and  truly  humane  President,  which  has  diffused  a  senti 
ment  of  gladness  and  gratitude  throughout  the  whole 
land.  There  is  no  instance  in  all  history  of  a  more  sage 
and  magnanimous  exercise  of  the  pardoning  power  than 
this,  and  already  the  good  effects  resulting  therefrom  are 
beginning  to  display  themselves  in  every  part  of  the  Re 
public.  We  shall,  indeed,  soon  be  one  people  in  sentiment, 
opinion,  and  interest,  as  we  were  when  the  foundations  of 
our  noble  Government  were  laid.  The  policy  of  forgive- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  325 

ness  and  reconcilement  wil]  doubtless  in  a  month  or  two 
more  be  made  universal,  as  it  ought  to  be,  so  as  even  to 
embrace  certain  classes  not  even  yet  reconstructed  in  tem 
per,  in  thought,  and  demeanor.  This  great  Government 
can  afford  even  to  shower  its  benignity  upon  the  discon 
tented,  the  factious,  and  the  complaining,  as  God  sends 
His  rains  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.  Its  own  unsul 
lied  honor  requires  that  it  should  do  so.  The  sublime 
work  of  national  pacification,  I  am  confident,  will  not  be 
done  by  the  American  Congress  by  halves,  or  in  a  stint 
ing  and  parsimonious  manner.  The  corning  Congress  will 
advance  heroically  up  to  the  thrice-glorious  duty  which 
lies  before  them  for  performance,  and  then  indeed  shall 
we  have  peace  and  amity  and  affectionate  brotherhood 
throughout  this  broad  and  Heaven-blessed  continent. 

O 

And  when  this  state  of  things  shall  have  been  once  fully 
realized,  should  it  become  needful  to  call  into  practical 
exercise  the  long-cherished  Monroe  doctrine,  either  upon 
terra  firma  or  amid  the  beauteous  and  attractive  islands 
which  so  providentially  shut  in  our  own  Mare  Clausum 
to  the  south,  we  shall  behold  a  spectacle  which,  in  true 
glory,  will  eclipse  all  that  the  world's  history  has  hereto 
fore  depictured.  I  do  not  at  all  doubt  that  there  are  men 
now  living  who  will  see  the  sacred  emblem  of  American 
freedom  and  power  borne  onward  and  aloft  over  the 
whole  extent  of  North  America,  carrying  with  it  every 
where,  over  the  land  and  over  the  circumambient  seas, 
the  majestic  charter  of  our  liberties,  even  in  its  present 
amplified  and  amended  form,  and,  through  its  sublime 
instrumentality,  giving  protection,  encouragement,  and 
constantly  increasing  hope  of  the  highest  social  and  moral 
advancement  to  all  who  may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  be  lo 
cated  under  its  auspicious  and  ennobling  influence. 

I  hope  to  be  excused  for  here  citing  what  I  ventured  to 
say  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  year  1865,  and  which 


326  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

has  been  long  since  printed,  every  word  of  which  will  be 
found  in  unison  with  what  I  have  on  this  occasion  enun 
ciated.  I  then  said,  and  I  am  not  ashamed  of  having 
then  said,  honestly,  and  for  the  great  purpose  which  I 
had  at  that  time  in  view,  what  follows: 

1  have,  in  the  course  of  the  present  correspondence,  once  or  twice 
incidentally  alluded  to  the  celebrated  Monroe  doctrine  as  presenting 
alike  to  the  States  of  the  North  and  those  of  the  South  a  means  of  cor 
dial  reconcilement  and  of  future  prosperity  and  strength.  Let  me  say 
here,  in  addition,  that  I  deem  it  one  of  the  most  fortunate  circum_ 
stances  which  could  be  possibly  imagined  that  such  an  opportunity  of 
doing  away  forever  with  sectional  distrust  and  animosity,  and  of  con 
solidating  the  National  Union,  should  have  been  thus  seasonably  afforded, 
as  this  same  Monroe  doctrine  has  so  remarkably  supplied.  Just  recol 
lect,  if  you  please,  that  the  favorite  idea  of  all  the  venerated  fathers  of 
American  liberty,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Republic,  was  that  the 
moral  ascendency  as  well  as  physical  domination  of  the  Anglo-Ameri 
can  race,  their  peculiar  institutions  of  government,  and  their  social 
morals,  were  to  be  ultimately  coextensive  with  the  great  continent  it 
self  where  it  is  our  fortune  to  be  located.  Bear  in  mind  also  that  it  is 
essential  to  the  progress  of  liberal  sentiment  in  this  hemisphere,  the 
healthful  and  beneficial  advancement  of  science,  and  all  the  useful  and 
elevating  arts  of  civilized  existence,  that  a  cordial  consociation  and  co 
operation  of  energies  of  every  kind  should  be  in  some  way  effectually 
secured,  with  a  view  to  the  attainment  of  the  great  end  in  contempla 
tion  ;  and  I  can  not  at  all  doubt  that  you  will  fully  agree  with  me  in 
the  opinion  that  it  is  indeed  the  voice  of  true  wisdom  and  of  enlight 
ened  patriotism  also,  which  invokes,  which  entreats  you,  with  an  earn 
estness  not  known  to  the  selfish  votaries  of  faction,  to  seize  at  once  the 
golden  opportunity  which  an  all-bounteous  Providence  has  so  fortun 
ately  presented  to  you  of  becoming  not  only  the  restorer  of  your  coun 
try's  happiness,  but  the  vindicator  also  of  the  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  freedom  in  our  own  favored  hemisphere. 

Doubt  not,  I  pray  you,  that  the  chivalrous  sons  of  the  South  will,  if 
justly  and  liberally  treated  in  this  the  day  of  their  sore  travail  and  suf 
fering,  second  you  in  all  your  exertions  to  maintain  the  Monroe  doc 
trine  in  all  its  primeval  scope  and  vigor.  They  know  the  history  of 
that  doctrine  well,  and  it  stands  associated  with  many  of  their  proud 
est  and  most  inspiring  recollections.  They  remember  that  though  in 
theory  originating  in  the  generous  bosom  and  expanded  and  far-reach 
ing  intellect  of  a  renowned  British  statesman,  the  lamented  George 


CASKET    Or    REMINISCENCES.  327 

Canning,*  (sustained,  if  my  memory  serve  me  faithfully,  in  this  the 
most  glorious  movement  of  his  public  life,  by  such  men  as  a  Brougham 
and  a  Mclntosh,)  yet  that  it  is  alike  true,  that  from  the  year  1823  up  to 
the  breaking  out  of  the  present  unhappy  war  in  1801,  every  adminis 
tration  of  the  Government  of  which  you  are  now  the  chief  executive 


*  Those  who  have  made  themselves  familiar  with  the  parliamentary  life  of 
Mr.  Canning  will  not  regard  me  as  at  all  overstating  his  conduct  on  this  im 
portant  subject.  Hansard's  ' k  Parliamentary  Debates  "  show  that  this  truly 
upright  and  courageous  British  statesman  not  only  acted  the  part  attributed 
to  him  above,  but  that  he,  more  than  once,  on  very  striking  occasions, 
warmly  felicitated  himself  upon  having  done  so.  His  memorable  declara 
tion  in*  Parliament,  that  he  had  called  into  existence  new  States  in  the  West 
ern  hemisphere,  '  'in  order  to  redress  the  balance  of  power  disturbed  in  the 
East, ' '  is  of  course  remembered  by  all  the  admirers  of  this  great  master  of 
speech.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  known  to  all  that,  as  early  as  the  month  of  Au 
gust,  1823,  Mr  Canning,  in  HU  interview  with  Mr.  Rush,  the  American  Min 
ister  near  the  Court  of  St.  James  at  that  period,  urged  that  the  United  States 
should  unite  with  Great  Britain  in  a  formal  declaration  against  any  of  the 
continental  Powers  of  Europe  being  allowed  to  take  possession  of  any  por 
tion  of  HIM  territory  of  the  American  continent  th^ii  recently  rescued  from 
Spain .  Referring  to  the  designs  suspected  at  that  time  to  be  entertained  by 
France  in  particular,  he  stated  to  Mr.  Rush  that  he  "  was  satisfied  that  the 
knowledge  that  the  United  States  would  be  opposed  to  it  as  well  as  England 
could  not  fail  to  have  a  decisive  influence  in  checking  it  "  In  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Rush,  written  a  few  days  after  this  noted  interview,  he  said,  referring 
to  th"  apprehended  transfer  of  Mexico  to  France,  that  Great  Britain,  while 
unwilling  to  interfere  with  any  efforts  on  the  part  of  Spain  to  repossess  her 
self  of  her  ancient  colonial  possessions,  ' '  could  not  see  the  transfer  of  any 
portion  to  any  other  Power  with  indifference."  In  several  other  letters 
this  view  of  the  subject  was  earnestly  presented  by  Mr.  Canning  to  Mr. 
Rush,  who  was  at  last  persuaded  to  concur  with  him,  and  to  bring  the  sub 
ject,  as  he  did  in  a  very  forcible  manner,  to  the  consideration  of  Mr.  Monroe 
and  his  Cabinet.  The  promulgation  of  what  is  known  as  "the  Monroe  doc 
trine  "  was  the  result.  Mr.  Monroe,  in  a  message  to  Congress,  expressed 
himself  as  follows:  "With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of  any 
European  Power  we  have  not  interfered  and  shall  not  interfere;  but  with 
the  governments  who  have  declared  their  independence,  and  maintained 
it,  and  whose  independence  we  have,  on  great  consideration  and  on  just 
principles,  acknowledged,  we  could  not  view  any  interposition  for  the  pur 
pose  of  oppressing  them  or  controlling  their  destiny,  by  any  European 
Power,  in  any  other  light  than  as  a  manifestation  of  an  unfriendly  disposi 
tion  toward  the  United  States."  Referring  to  this  very  mes-age,  Lord 
Brougham,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  said:  "The  question 
with  regard  to  South  America  now  was.  he  believed,  disposed  of,  or  nearly 
so  ;  for  an  event  had  recently  happened,  than  which  no  event  had  ever  dis 
persed  greater  joy,  exultation,  and  gratitude  over  all  the  free  men  of 
Europe;  that  event,  which  was  decisive  on  the  subject,  was  the  language 
held  with  respect  to  Spanish  America  in  the  speech  or  message  of  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  to  Congress."  Sir  James  Mclntosh,  in  one  of  his 
noblest  speeches,  alluding  to  the  same  message  of  Mr.  Monroe,  said:  "This 
wise  Government,  in  grave  but  determined  language,  and  with  that  reason 
able  but  deliberate  tone  that  becomes  true  courage,  proclaims  the  principles 
of  her  policy,  and  makes  known  the  cases  in  which  the  care  of  her  own  safety 
will  compel  her  to  take  up  arms  for  the  defense  of  other  States.  I  have 
already  observed  its  coincidence  with  the  declarations  of  England,  which, 
indeed,  is  perfect,  if  allowance  be  made  for  the  deeper,  or  at  least  more  im 
mediate  interest  in  the  independence  of  South  America  which  near  neigh 
borhood  gives  to  the  United  States.  This  coincidence  of  the  two  g^eat 
English  commonwealths  (for  so  I  delight  to  call  them,  and  I  heartily  pray 
that  they  may  be  forever  united  in  the  cause  of  justice  and  liberty)  can  not 
be  contemplated  without  the  utmost  pleasure  by  every  enlightened  citizen 
of  the  earth.  "  It  is  a  very  clear  proposition  that,  if  the  Great  Britain  of 
to-day  is  the  Great  Britain  of  Mr.  Canning's  time,  (and  who  can  doubt  it?) 
that  this  came  Monroe  doctrine  may  yet  become  the  nucleus  of  union  and 
manly,  efficient,  co-operative  energy  among  all  who  speak  the  English  lan 
guage  in  both  hemispheres,  and  who  cherish  a  true  regard  for  the  tree  insti 
tutions  derived  from  a  common,  ancestry.  So  mote  it  be ! — H.  S.  F. 


328  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

functionary  has  uniformly  asserted  and  maintained  this  magna  charta 
of  the  Western  hemisphere  with  a  steady  firmness  and  with  undimin- 
ished  zeal.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Daniel  Webster,  Lewis  Cass,  Millard 
Fillmore,  James  Buchanan,  President  Pierce,  and  Edward  Everett,  of 
the  North  ;  James  Monroe,  John  C.  Callioun,  Henry  Clay,  William 
II.  Crawford,  Andrew  Jackson,  John  Tyler,  and  James  K.  Polk,  of  the 
South,  at  different  periods  and  in  different  modes,  are  well  known  to 
have  signalized  their  devotion  to  the  great  American  principle  embo 
died  in  the  far-famed  Mocroe  doctrine  ;  and  it  is  a  little  too  late  now 
to  expect  any  considerable  portion  of  the  descendants  of  those  great 
men,  some  of  whom  have  gone  do'vn  to  the  grave  with  so  much  honor, 
to  relinquish  those  muniments  of  national  safety  and  freedom  which 
have  been  thus  far  so  nobly  maintained. 

I  venture  to  predict,  Mr.  President,  that  if  such  just  and  gracious 
treatment  shall  be  now  accorded  to  the  South  as  her  people  have  a  clear 
right  to  demand  in  tl^e  adjustment  of  the  terms  upon  which  peace  and 
union  shall  be  once  more  restored,  this  same  Monroe  doctrine  is  des 
tined  shortly  to  become  the  effectual  healer  of  sectioned  distempcraturcs — 
the  sovereign  uniter  of  hearts  which  should  never  have  been  divided — 
the  veritable  Macedonian  sword  itself,  which,  skillfully  wielded,  will 
yet  be  seen  to  cut  asunder  that  Gordianknot  of  discord  which  has  here 
tofore  so  fearfully  puzzled  and  perplexed  even  the  most  gifted  of  our 
statesmen. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  329 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXI. 

THOMAS    II.    BENTON — GENERAL    TAYLOR — JOHN    M.  CLAYTON- 
MEXICAN  TREATY — COLONEL  FREMONT. 

I  do  not  feel  that  these  reminiscences  would  have  any 
claim  to  be  recognized  as  complete  were  I  to  exclude 
therefrom  all  notice  of  the  very  remarkable  man  upon 
whose  life  and  character  I  propose  at  this  time  to  offer  a 
few  observations. 

Thomas  II.  Bentou  was  born  in  the  State  of  North 
Carolina.  He  was  of  respectable  origin,  and  stood  con 
nected  with  many  families,  both  in  his  native  State  and 
elsewhere,  of  very  creditable  standing.  The  course  of  his 
education  at  college  was  disagreeably  interrupted  by  a 
very  sad  occurrence,  upon  which  I  shall  not  here  ex 
patiate,  but  in  reference  to  which  I  once  felt  bound  to 
make  very  distinct  allusions  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
in  presence  of  Mr.  Benton  himself.  On  leaving  J*Torth 
Carolina,  before  he  was  yet  entirely  grown,  Colonel  Ben- 
ton  located  in  the  State  of  Tennessee,  and  taught  school 
upon  the  classic  Duck  river  for  a  year  or  two ;  during 
which  time  he  is  reported  to  have  been  a  diligent  student 
of  law,  and  a  general  reader  of  books  calculated  to  im 
prove  his  intellect  and  tit  him  for  the  career  which  he 
expected  soon  to  run.  As  a  lawyer  he  located,  more  than 
sixty  years  ago,  in  the  respectable  village  of  Franklin,  the 
county  seat  of  Williamson  county,  and  about  twenty 
miles  from  Nashville.  The  small  brick  tenement  which 
he  occupied  as  a  professional  office  is  still  pointed  out  by 
the  good  citizens  of  Franklin  to  those  at  all  curious  in 
relation  to  the  early  incidents  in  Colonel  Benton's  bustling 


330  CASKET   .OK    REMINISCENCES. 

ami  variegated  life.  He  represented  for  a  year  or  two 
the  rich  and  intelligent  county  of  Williamson  in  the  Sen 
ate  of  Tennessee  ;  but  I  do  not  learn  that  at  this  stage  of 
his  career  he  gave  evidence  of  any  remarkable  ability 
either  as  a  lawyer  or  as  a  legislator.  During  the  war  of 
1812-1815,  he,  from  various  causes,  became  known  quite 
extensively,  and  his  celebrated  conflict  with  General 
Jackson  in  the  streets  of  Xashville  imparted  to  him  a 
celebrity  not  easy  to  be  extinguished.  A  year  or  two 
after  this  he  attracted  some  attention  in  Missouri  as  the 
editor  of  a  newspaper,  and  an  active  and  influential  politi 
cal  partisan.  In  relation  to  his  bitter  personal  quarrels  in 
Missouri  at  this  period  I  have  nothing  to  sav,  as  I  did  not 

O  «/     ' 

then  know  him  personally.  He  took  his  seat  in  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States  as  one  of  the  first  Senators  from 
Missouri  on  the  admission  of  that  State,  more  than  a  half 
century  ago.  For  several  years  he  attained  no  considera 
ble  prominence  as  a  Senator,  but  this  period  seems  to 
have  been  occupied  by  him  in  a  close  and  unremitting: 
study  of  the  volumes  of  science  and  of  general  literature. 
I  formed  my  first  personal  acquaintance  with  him  about 
the  year  1837,  but  had  been  a  very  close  observer  of  his 
public  acts  and  speeches  for  a  good  while  before.  I  had 
in  general  agreed  with  him  upon  the  public  questions 
then  under  discussion,  but  I  had  never  read  his  speeches 
with  much  gratification,  nor  was  I  an  admirer  of  his  im 
perious,  self-important  manner  in  debate,  or  of  his  coarse 
and  ferocious  dogmatism.  On  meeting  him  face  to  face 
rriy  first  unfavorable  impressions  of  him  were  great! v 
strengthened,  and  the  excessive  vanity  and  egotism  con 
stantly  displayed  by  him,  both  in  conversational  scenes 
and  in  the  Senate,  inspired  me  with  feelings  of  disgust 
and  aversion  which  I  have  seldom  experienced.  Several 
well-known  occurrences  had  taken  place  before  my  en 
trance  into  the  Senate  in  December,  1847,  which  had 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  331 

awakened  in  my  mind  certain  sentiments  toward  Mr. 
Ben  ton,  bordering,  I  must  confess,  upon  feelings  of  posi 
tive  dislike  and  detestation,  among  which  I  may  mention 
his  fierce  collision  with  my  friend,  Robert  J.  Walker,  in 
the  winter  of  l836-'37,  upon  the  currency  question  then 
pending;  his  hitter  denunciations  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
others  for  whom  I  cherished  at  that  time  a  tender  and 
profound  regard,  and  his  habitually  overbearing  demeanor 
in  the  Senate  toward  all,  even  of  his  own  party,  who  did 
not  slavishly  submit  to  his  authority.  His  aspirations  to 
the  office  of  Lieutenant  General  during  the  Mexican  war, 
the  arts  which  he  practiced  to  obtain  this  appointment, 
and  his  subsequent  hostility  to  Mr.  Polk  because  of  his 
unwillingness  to  send  him  to  Mexico  to  take  command  of 
our  noble  army  there — by  the  unjust  and  ungenerous 
supersession  of  that  gallant  and  patriotic  officer,  General 
Win  field  Scott — established  in  my  mind  sentiments  of 
solid  and  irremovable  opposition  to  Colonel  Benton  such 
as  I  have  seldom  felt  for  any  public  man  whatever. 

I  do  not  deem  it  proper  to  refer  to  the  almost  number 
less  scenes  which  afterward  had  their  progress  in  the  Sen 
ate,  in  which  I  felt  called  upon  to  resist  Mr.  Benton's  ty 
rannic  insolence  of  demeanor,  or  to  defend  against  his 
unjust  and  cruel  assailment  some  of  the  most  worthy  and 
unoffending  citizens  I  have  ever  known— the  bare  men 
tion  of  whose  names  would  be  sufficient  with  all  who 
knew  them  to  justify  me  in  the  estimation  of  all  just- 
minded  and  patriotic  citizens  for  coming  forward  as  their 
zealous  defender.  I  prefer  passing  all  this  by,  and  com 
ing  to  matters  of  still  higher  dignity.  Paulo  major  a  cana- 
mus  ! 

One  morning  a  gentleman  of  remarkable  astuteness  and 
penetration,  who  had  been  a  short  time  before  a  member 
of  Congress,  and  who,  I  am  glad  to  know,  is  still  living, 
called  upon  me  at  my  comrnittee-room  in  the  Capitol,  and 


332  GASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

laid  before  rue  facts  showing  very  conclusively  that  Colo 
nel  Benton  was  then  in  collusion  with  the  Mexican  Min 
ister  at  that  time  resident  in  Washington  for  the  purpose 
of  procuring,  if  he  could,  the  rescission  of  the  important 
treaty  then  recently  entered  into  with  Mexico  by  means 
of  which  vast  territories  had  been  acquired  of  almost  in 
calculable  value.  I  learned  from  the  individual  referred 
to  that  Mr.  Benton  and  the  Mexican  Minister  were  con 
stantly  interchanging  visits,  and  that  official  letters 
signed  by  the  Mexican  Ministers  had  been  received  at  the 
Department  of  State,  where  Mr.  Buchanan  was  then  offi 
ciating,  urging  with  singular  ingenuity  and  force  that 
the  important  treaty  alluded  to  was  of  no  earthly 
validity  whatever,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  a  certain 
paper,  somewhat  loosely  called  a  protocol,  which  had  been 
signed  by  the  ministers  of  the  United  States  who  had 
previously  negotiated  the  treaty,  after  the  date  of  that 
instrument,  wTas  so  palpably  repugnant  to  the  provisions 
thereof  as  necessarily,  should  it  be  allowed  to  have  effect, 
to  operate  its  abrogation.  I  was  further  advised  that  Mr. 
Benton  would  very  soon  propound  this  important  matter 
in  the  Senate  while  that  body  should  be  in  executive  session, 
and  would  offer  a  resolution  for  adoption  correspondent 
with  the  views  set  forth  in  the  letters  of  the  Mexican 
Minister  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  which  have  been 
already  mentioned.  This  extraordinary  disclosure,  forti 
fied,  as  I  saw  it  to  be,  by  various  surrounding  circum 
stances,  awakened  in  my  bosom  mingled  feelings  of  indig 
nation  and  alarm.  Great  national  interests  seemed  to  be 
in  the  most  serious  jeopardy.  Mr.  Benton's  peculiar  posi 
tion  at  the  time  (that  gentleman  not  having  then  lost  all 
his  power  and  influence  in  the  Senate  and  with  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  and  having  done  much  of  late,  as  I  bore  in 
mind,  of  a  nature  to  soften  down  and  conciliate  his  former 
party  adversaries,  the  Whigs)  furnished,  as  I  thought  at 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  333 

the  time,  and  as  I  do  yet  think,  ground  for  the  greatest 
solicitude  and  anxiety.  After  consulting  with  several 
considerate  friends — recollecting  that  noted  test  to  which 
Hamlet  is  described  as  subjecting  his  usurping  uncle,  by 
having  presented  to  his  view  an  extemporized  dramatic 
entertainment  fitted  to  develop  aught  of  "  rottenness," 
which  might  be  perchance  lurking  "  in  the  State  of  Den 
mark" — I  delivered  one  morning  in  the  Senate  a  short 
but  very  animated  address,  (which  may  be  yet  found  in 
the  Congressional  Globe  of  that  period,)  accompanying  the 
enunciation  of  the  same,  as  far  as  it  was  in  my  power  to 
do  so,  with  significant  glances  and  gestures,  so  as  at  least 
to  adumbrate  to  any  guilty  conscience  which  might  be  in 
presence  the  painful  and  harrowing  suspicions  which  I 
had  conceived,  and  even  to  "  probe  it  "  also,  if  possible, 
"  to  the  very  quick."  This  address,  which  six  or  eight 
surviving  Senators  do  doubtless  well  recollect,  concluded 
with  that  well-known  couplet  of  Pope  : 

Who  would  not  smite,  if  such  a  man  there  be? 
Who  would  not  blush,  if  Attictis  were  lie? 

Whether  there  was  real  blenching  in  the  distrusted  quar 
ter  I  shall  leave  to  those  then  present  to  decide.  I  was, 
I  confess,  very  desirous  that  the  experienced  Senator  from 
Missouri  should  desist  from  his  scheme  of  territorial  spoli 
ation,  could  he  be  induced  to  do  so  either  by  his  own  fears 
of  personal  disgrace,  or  by  the  persuasions  of  his  friends ; 
and  I  awaited  the  result  with  patience,  though  certainly 
not  without  carrying  forward  diligently  the  scrutiny 
which  I  had  already  commenced.  In  a  day  or  two  after 
this  Mr.  Polk  ceased  to  be  President,  and  General  Taylor 
became  domiciliated  at  the  White  House. 

Having  unlimited  confidence  in  that  pure  and  fervent 
love  of  country  which  I  knew  to  glow  in  the  bosom  of 
this  war-worn  veteran,  and  entertaining  a  warm  personal 
esteem  for  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  I  resolved  to  make 


334  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

an  early  appeal  to  those  then  in  power  to  aid,  with  what 
ever  of  influence  they  possessed,  in  defeating  any  proposi 
tion  which  Mr.  Benton  might  bring  forward  in  the  Senate 
looking  to  the  doing  away  of  the  Mexican  treaty.     Before 
this  intention  could  he  fully  executed  two  Senators  from 
the  State  of  Iowa,   Messrs.    Dodge  and    Jones,  (both  of 
whom  are  yet  living,)  came  to  rue  at  the  Capitol,  directly 
from  an  interview  with  Mr.  Buchanan,  and  bearing  to 
me  a   message    from   that    gentleman,  requesting  me  to 
come  to  see  him  immediately,  for  the  purpose  of  learning 
from  his  own  lips  all  the  particulars  connected  with  the 
correspondence   which    had    several   weeks   before  taken 
place  between  himself,  as  Secretary  of  State  under  Mr. 
Polk,  and  the  Mexican  Minister.      I  should  here  mention 
that  Mr.  Buchanan  yet  occupied  the  State  Department, 
having  been   requested    by    General    Taylor  to  continue 
therein  until  it  should  become  convenient  for  Mr.  Clayton, 
then  elsewhere  much  occupied,  to  relieve  him.      I  will 
here  mention  an  additional  fact,  which  I  could  not  con 
sider  altogether  immaterial.  The  two  Senators  who  had  thus 
summoned  me  to  the  presence  of  Mr.  Buchanan  had  been 
up  to  that  time  (and  possibly  may  be  yet)  warm  admirers 
of  Mr.  Benton,  and  had  frankly  declared  in  this  very  in 
terview  with  me  that  they  had  before  that  time  been  often 
disposed  to  find  fault   with  what  they  deemed  my  own 
over-censorious  course  toward  him.     The  interview  thus 
solicited  by  Mr.  Buchanan  did  in  point  of  fact  take  place, 
but  barely  in  time  to  prevent  mischievous  consequences  in 
the  Senate.     The  adroit  and  skillful  engineer  had  already 
commenced  his  work  in  that  body  with  all  the  artistic 
skill  which  his  great  parliamentary  experience  could  sup 
ply,  and   it   hud    now  become  an   exceedingly  interesting1 
question  whether  this  same  engineer  could  or  could  not 
be  "  hoist  on  his  own  petard."     Mr.  Buchanan  gave  me 
his  views  in  full  upon  the  question  raised  by  Mr.  Benton 


(JACKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  835 

in  the  Senate,  and  he  explained  all  the  circumstances  con 
nected  with  the  "  protocol,"  just  as  I  heard  them  from 
the  lips  of  that  able  and  incorruptible  officer,  Judge  Clif 
ford,  in  an  interview  I  had  with  him  about  three  months 
since,  and  who  knows  better  than  any  one  else  all  the 
facts  of  the  case  by  reason  of  his  having  been  one  of  the 
Ministers  to  Mexico  already  referred  to.  Mr.  Buchanan 
further  gave  me  assurance  that  he  had  good  reason  to 
believe  that  General  Taylor  and  his  Cabinet  entertained 
in  regard  to  the  protocol  the  same  views  that  he  did,  and 
that  they  would  sustain  the  position  heretofore  taken  on 
the  subject  by  the  Administration  of  Mr.  Polk.  He  sug 
gested,  also,  that  he  and  I  should  visit  the  White  House 
on  the  morning  anterior  to  the  meeting  of  the  Senate, 
(then  in  special  session,)  and  before  Mr.  Benton's  resolu 
tion  could  be  acted  upon,  and  procure,  if  we  could,  some 
thing  like  a  formal  official  declaration  from  President 
Taylor  himself,  or  his  expected  Premier,  Mr.  Clayton, 
which,  when  shown  to  the  Whig  members  of  the  Seriate, 
would  open  their  eyes  to  the  dangers  of  the  moment,  and 
advise  them  fully  of  the  views  and  wishes  of  the  existing 
Administration.  Early  on  the  following  morning,  there 
fore,  before  yet  the  hour  of  10  o'clock  had  arrived,  Mr. 
Buchanan  and  myself  wTere  on  our  way  to  the  Presiden 
tial  Mansion.  Just  as  the  carriage  which  was  conveying  us 

O  «/i^ 

thither  reached  a  point  opposite  the  Department  of  State, 
Colonel  J.  Watson  Webb,  former  editor  of  the  New  York 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  made  his  appearance,  told  us  that 
he  knew  what  was  taking  us  to  the  presence  of  General 
Taylor,  and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  accompany  us  thither 
upon  our  patriotic  mission.  To  this  we  cheerfully  ac 
ceded,  and  all  three  of  us  proceeded  without  delay  to  our 
place  of  destination.  On  reaching  the  White  House  we 
learned  that  the  Cabinet  was  then  in  session.  We  sent 
our  names  to  Mr.  Clayton,  and  asked  for  an  immediate 


:>>  !'»  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

interview,  which  having  been  accorded  us  we  laid  the 
matter  so  near  our  hearts  before  this  courteous  and  accom 
plished  personage.  His  conduct  on  the  occasion  was  most 
manly  and  becoming.  He  told  us  that  the  subject  of  the 
treaty  and  protocol  had  been  considered  fully  by  the  Presi 
dent  and  his  Cabinet ;  that  th^y  could  see  no  repugnance 
between  these  two  documents,  and  that  they  would  cer 
tainly  maintain  the  position  heretofore  taken  in  regard  to 
this  matter  by  the  administration  of  Mr.  Polk.  Mr.  Clay 
ton  also  said,  emphatically,  that  he  had  thoroughly  exam 
ined  the  official  correspondence  which  had  been  held  be 
tween  Mr.  Buchanan  and  the  Mexican  Minister,  and  that 
he  was  prepared  to  indorse  every  line  and  sentence  which 
his  predecessor,  Mr.  Buchanan,  had  heretofore  addressed 
to  the  latter  personage  touching  this  grave  and  interest 
ing  affair.  After  this  manly  and  patriotic  assurance 
had  been  given,  I  asked  Mr.  Clayton  to  embody,  or  cause 
to  be  embodied,  in  a  short  resolution  or  statement,  the 
views  just  expressed  by  him,  which  he  did  accordingly  ; 
that  is  to  say,  he  dictated  it  to  one  of  our  company,  who 
took  the  same  down  in  pencil  marks,  from  Mr.  Clayton's 
own  lips  on  the  spot.  This  resolution  I  took  with  me  to 
the  Senate,  and  laid  it  before  several  AVhig  members  of 
that  body,  who  declared  their  warm  approval  of  the  same. 
To  make  "  assurance  double  sure  '  as  to  a  concern  so  im 
portant,  Reverdy  Johnson,  the  then  Attorney  General— 
as  able  and  patriotic  a  man  as  is  now  living — was  re 
quested  by  General  Taylor  to  go  to  the  Senate  and  declare 
to  the  Whig  members  there  the  action  which  had  been 
had  at  the  White  House ;  so,  some  time  before  Mr.  Ben- 
ton  had  closed  his  prosy  and  labored  speech  in  support  of 
his  own  nullifying  resolution,  it  wras  well  known  to  all  but 
himself  what  the  result  would  be.  When  he  brought  his 

o 

remarks  to  a  close  and  sent  his  resolution  to  the  Clerk's 
desk,  I  rose  and  spoke  in  reply  for  about  an  hour  in  Ian- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  337 

guage  of  great  explicitness,  in  which  I  inveighed  as 
strongly  as  I  could  against  Mr.  Benton's  movement,  de 
nounced  it  as  alike  unpatriotic  and  mischievous,  and 
pointed  out  the  unworthy  personal  motives  by  which  he 
was  evidently  influenced.  After  this  his  resolution  was 
voted  down  unanimously,  with  the  exception,  indeed,  of 
his  own  vote,  and  he  left  the  hall  full  of  anger  and  cha 
grin. 

It  will  surprise  no  one  now^,  I  presume,  to  learn  that  I 
considered  myself  justified  by  such  facts  as  I  have  been 
relating,  and  which  all  the  members  of  the  Senate  now 
surviving  would  be  doubtless  ready  to  attest,  in  doing 
what  I  could  legitimately  and  fairly  to  weaken  Mr.  Ben- 
ton's  influence  in  the  country,  and  to  circumscribe  his 
capacity  for  mischief.  Hence  my  assail mcnt  of  him  in 
the  newspapers  in  the  summer  of  1849,  and  other  acts, 
needless  now  to  be  mentioned,  indicating  my  opinion  of 
his  character  and  the  danger  which  I  apprehended  from 
his  being  intrusted  with  too  large  an  amount  of  civic 
power.  I  determined  to  deal  him  in  addition  a  decisive 
blow,  which,  should  the  Democratic  members  of  the  Sen 
ate  prove  as  mindful  of  the  honor  of  the  country,  as  well 
as  of  their  own  individual  dignity,  as  I  hoped  they  would, 
could  not  but  be  fatal  to  Mr.  Benton's  hopes  of  ascendency 
in  the  future.  On  the  first  day  of  the  approaching  session 
of  Congress  I  entered  the  Democratic  caucus  which  had 

* 

been  convoked  for  that  day,  and  moved  that  Thomas  H. 
Benton,  upon  charges  which  I  was  prepared  to  array 
against  him,  should  be  discontinued  as  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  well  knowing  that  if  this 
movement  should  be  successful  in  caucus,  the  Democratic 
party  paving  a  decided  majority  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton  would  be  inevitably  ousted  from  the  high  position 
referred  to,  and  that  William  R.  King,  of  Alabama,  would 
be  chairman  of  the  Committee  011  Foreign  Affairs  in  his 
22  R 


338  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

stead,  which  motion,  after  two  mornings  spent  in  its  dis 
cussion,  was-  carried  by  one  vote;  soon  after  which  Mr. 
Benton  resigned  his  membership  of  the  committee. 

Mr.  Benton  was  certainly  a  man  of  considerable  native 
strength  of  intellect,  and  of  a  most  capacious  and  retentive 
memory.  He  possessed  much  knowledge  of  various  kinds, 
and  as  a  writer  of  pure  and  nervous  English  had  but  few 
equals.  He  was  exceedingly  deficient  in  extemporaneous 
oratorical  power,  had  a  bad  voice,  a  forbidding  and  un- 
conciliatory  manner — showed  but  little  respect  for  the  feel 
ings  of  those  whom  he  met  in  debate,  and  as  a  politician 
was  little  regardful  of  the  means  which  he  employed  for 
the  attainment  of  his  ends.  He  never  spoke  in  the  Senate 
except  upon  the  most  labored  preparation,  and  then  always 
from  copious  notes,  and  his  principal  speeches  were 
always  fully  written  out  before  their  delivery. 

A  scene  occurred  in  the  Senate  between  Mr.  Benton  and 
myself  which  I  should  here  briefly  explain.  In  the  sum 
mer  of  1850,  while  Mr.  Calhoun's  remains  were  being 
transported  from  Washington  to  South  Carolina,  but  be 
fore  they  had  left  Washington,  Mr.  Benton  rose  up  one 
morning  and  made,  as  I  understood  them,  some  very  dis 
respectful  allusions  to  the  illustrious  deceased.  I  stepped 
to  the  chair  of  Mr.  Butler,  Mr.  Calhoun's  own  Senatorial 
colleague,  and  urged  him  to  say  something  in  response. 
He  seemed  not  exactly  to  understand  the  import  of  Mr. 
Benton's  words,  and  therefore  responded  to  him  in  a  very 
confused  and  ineffective  manner.  I  rose  up  to  subjoin  one 
or  two  observations  in  a  style,  as  I  am  willing  to  acknowl 
edge,  not  a  little  animated  and  indignant.  Mr.  Benton 
got  up  suddenly  from  his  chair,  which  was  some  distance 
from  mine,  making  at  the  time  a  prodigious  noise,  and 
advanced  rapidly  in  the  direction  of  my  position,  which 
was  on  the  outer  circle  of  seats,  not  far  from  the  central 
door  of  the  chamber,  and  seemed  to  be  aiming  to  «*et 

O  Z3 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  #39 

behind  me  whilst  I  was  speaking,  in  order  to  strike  me 
when  in  this  unprotected  attitude.  I  had  been  warned 
by  Senator  Pratt  only  a  day  or  two  before  that  he  had 
publicly  threatened  to  do  rne  violence  in  the  Senate  if  I 
ever  undertook  to  allude  to  him  again,  and  I  had  deemed 
it  expedient  to  put  on  arms  for  my  own  defense.  I  was 
wearing  at  the  moment  a  Colt's  revolver,  which  I  cer 
tainly  intended  to  use  should  it  become  necessary.  On 
drawing  it,  I  took  a  step  or  two  to  the  right,  which  car 
ried  me  to  the  central  aisle  of  the  Senate.  I  then  turned 
toward  the  central  door  of  the  chamber,  intending  cer 
tainly  if  Mr.  Benton  should  pass  the  corner  near  my  seat 
and  advance  a  single  step  down  the  aisle  I  was  standing 
in,  after  having  warned  him  of  my  intention,  to  fire  upon 
him  at  once,  conceiving  that  in  shooting  in  the  direction 
of  the  central  door  I  should  be  able  to  avoid  doing  injury 
to  any  one  else;  for  I  undoubtedly  did  not  intend  to  suc 
cumb  to  his  violence  while  in  the  decorous  performance  of 
my  Senatorial  duties.  When  Mr.  Benton  saw  I  was 
armed,  he  paused,  and  in  a  second  or  two  allowed  Gov 
ernor  Dodge,  the  venerable  Senator  from  Wisconsin,  to 
conduct  him  to  his  chair.  Before  he  had  fairly  reseated 
himself,  Mr.  Dickinson,  of  ^s~ew  York,  asked  me  for  my 
pistol,  which  I  willingly  handed  him.  Then  it  was  that 
Mr.  Benton  broke  oat  again  vociferously,  exclaiming, 
"Let  the  assassin  shoot!"  at  the  same  time  theatrically 
tearing-open  his  vest.  I  made  a  short  explanation  of  my 
conduct  to  the  Senate,  after  which  the  affair  was  referred 
to  a  special  committee,  whose  report  and  the  evidence 
annexed  thereto  occupy  one  large  printed  volume,  in 
which  future  generations  will  find,  a  huge  and  somewhat 
incongruous  mass  of  facts  of  a  very  ludicrous  and  inter 
esting  character. 

I  will  close  this  reminiscence  with  a  somewhat  curious 
anecdote  :  .A  few  days  after  the  two  Senators  from  Call 


340  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

fornia,  Messrs.  Gwin  and  Fremont,  were  admitted  to  the 
seats  which  they  had  been  quietly  claiming  for  several 
months,  the  latter,  Mr.  Fremont,  introduced  several  bills, 
evidently  drawn  by  Mr.  Benton,  his  father-in-law,  having 
relation  to  important  local  concerns  in  California,  and  of 
a  nature,  as  I  thought,  if  allowed  to  pass,  to  do  very 
great  detriment  to  valuable  national  interests  in  that 
quarter.  Several  old  and  valued  friends  of  mine  in  Cali 
fornia,  and  among  these  Judge  Shattuck,  had  warned  me 
in  a  very  serious  manner  against  these  very  movements. 
Before  taking  any  decided  step  in  the  matter,  I  counseled 
with  my  old  and  valued  friend,  Dr.  William  M.  Gwin, 
who  I  knew  from  more  than  twenty  years' acquaintance 
and  familiar  intercourse  would  be  sure  to  give  me  correct 
information.  The  Doctor,  in  very  concise  and  decided 
language,  continued  all  that  .Judge  Shattuck  had  said  on 
this  subject,  and  stated  that  he  should  himself  be  disposed 
to  d  >  what  he  could  to  defeat  these  schemes  of  Colonel. 
Fremont,  but  for  the  fact  that  he  was  his  colleague,  and 
he  was  desirous  of  cultivating  harmony  with  him  as  far 
as  he  honorably  could.  I  opposed  each  of  these  bills,  and 
they  were  defeated.  On  the  last  night  of  the  Senatorial 
session,  when  the  general  appropriation  bill  was  on  its 
passage,  a  renewed  attempt  was  made  on  the  part  of  Col 
onel  Fremont,  by  an  amendment  to  this  bill  which  he 
introduced,  to  attain  the  very  objects,  or  a  portion  thereof, 
for  the  purpose  of  realizing  which  his  separate  bills  had 
been  introduced.  Amid  the  excitement  and  confusion  of 
the  moment  this  amendment  was  very  near  passing.  No 
one  had  presented  as  yet  any  opposition  to  it  when  I  got 
up  and  explained  its  tijfie  character,  and  urged  Senators 

to  aid   me  in  defeating  it.     The  amendment  was  voted 

i? 

down,  and  presently  afterward  the  general  appropriation 
bill  passed  ;  after  which  a  motion  was  made  to  go  into 
executive  session,  which  was  carried.  Just  as  I  was 


BASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  341 

putting  rny  papers  back  into  my  drawer  Colonel  Fremont 
approached,  and  said,  in  a  very  quiet  manner,  that  lie 
wished  to  speak  with  me  outside  the  Senate.  I  knew 
very  well  what  this  meant ;  for  before  this  time  I  had 
never  been  even  introduced  to  this  gentleman,  as  in  truth 
I  never  have  yet  been.  I  replied  to  him  that  I  would 
join  him  immediately  ;  which  I  did.  When  we  got 
together,  outside  the  central  door  of  the  hall,  he  turned  to 
me  and  said,  "Colonel  Benton  is  not  at  all  pleased  with 
your  conduct  this  evening.'  "Ah  !"  said  I ;  "  this  is  truly 
unfortunate,  as  I  have  been  laboring  assiduously  to  con 
ciliate  this  father-in-law  of  yours  for  several  years."  Upon 
which,  growing  a  little  excited,  he  said  ?  "  I  do  not  my 
self  like  the  manner  in  which  you  have  been  intermed 
dling  with  my  California  affairs."  "I  should  like  to 
know,"  (I  responded,)  "  what  California  affairs  you  can 
possibly  have  to  attend  to  here  which  I,  as  a  Senator  from 
the  State  of  Mississippi,  may  not  properly  meddle  with." 
I  continued  thus,  substantially  :  "  Colonel  Fremont,  I  beg 
to  say  to  you  that  you  have  waked  up  the  wrong  passen 
ger.  Whilst  I  am  in  the  Senate,  I  shall  act  a  fearless  and 
independent  part,  regardless  whom  it  may  offend  save  my 
own  constituents."  To  this  he  answered:  "  You  are  not 
a  gentleman.''  So  soon  as  these  words  were  uttered  I 
struck  him.  Just  as  he  was  apparently  proceeding  to 
return  the  blow,  Senators  Clarke  and  Mangum  came 
hastily  through  the  folding-doors  of  the  Senate,  and  pre 
vented  any  further  hostilities. 

In  about  an  hour  a  gentleman  from  New  Jersey,  who 
was  afterward  Governor  of  that  State,  brought  me  rather 
a  strangely  worded  note  from  Colonel  Fremont,  which  I 
recognized  as  virtually  a  challenge  to  the  field  of  honor. 
I  wrote  a  reply  immediately  that  I  would  proceed  to  Bal 
timore  early  in  the  morning  and  send  an  acceptance  from 
that  place.  Before  the  Senate  adjourned  Messrs.  Gwin, 


342  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Jones,  and  Dodge,  of  that  body,  waited  upon  me  and  in 
formed  me  that  they  were  just  from  Colonel  Benton's  res 
idence,  where  they  had  demanded  that  this  affair  should 
ia*occcd  no  further,  and  urged  that  I  should  consent  to 
withdraw  my  note  in  order  that  Colonel  Fremont  might 
be  able  to  withdraw  his.  To  this  I  very  promptly  con 
sented.  I  proceeded  to  the  State  of  Mississippi  next  morn 
ing.  In  a  few  days  thereafter  my  honored  and  truly  chi 
valrous  friend,  the  Hon.  Reverdy  Johnson,  transmitted 
me  a  copy  of  a  very  denunciatory  hand-bill  just  issued  by 
Colonel  Fremont,  of  which  Colonel  Benton  was  himself 
undoubtedly  the  author,  arid  urged  me  under  all  the  cir 
cumstances  existing  to  take  no  notice  whatever  thereof. 
I  followed  his  advice. 

Several  years  thereafter,  when  Colonel  Fremont  was  in 
a  manner  so  extraordinary  put  in  nomination  for  the 
Presidency,  I  chanced  to  be  a  resident  of  San  Francisco, 
in  California.  One  morning,  when  seated  in  my  profes 
sional  office  in  that  city,  several  worthy  gentlemen  came 
in.  They  were  political  friends  of  Colonel  Fremont,  but 
very  good  personal  friends  of  my  own.  They  called  my 
attention  to  an  article  recently  printed  in  the  Cleveland 
Plaindealer,  in  which  their  Presidential  candidate  had 
been  fiercely  assailed,  and  in  which  lie  was  accused,  dur 
ing  his  occupancy  of  a  seat  in  the  Senate,  of  having  made 
a  violent  and  cruel  assault  upon  a  very  aged  and  decrepit 
brother  member  of  that  body,  (meaning  myself,)  and  it 
was  insisted  that  a  man  of  such  ferocious  manners  was 
wholly  unworthy  of  Presidential  promotion.  These  gen 
tlemen  asked  me  to  read  the  article,  which  I  did,  and 
then  inquired  of  me  as  to  the  truth  of  its  statements.  I 
was  happy  at  having  it  in  my  power  to  say  to  them  that 
their  Presidential  candidate  had  received  great  injustice 
at  the  hands  of  the  Ptaindealer.  They  then  inquired  of 
me  whether  I  would  make  a  certificate  to  that  effect,  to 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  343 

be  used  in  the  canvass,  to  which  I  assented,  and  formally 
certified  that  it  was  not  true  that  Colonel  Fremont  had 
ever  stricken  me  in  his  life,  and  subjoined  that,  had  he 
done  so,  I  was  quite  competent  to  defend  myself  against 
any  assault  which  he  could  possibly  have  made,  and  so 
ended  this  remarkable  affair.  Vive  la  bagatelle  !  Vive  la 
humbug  ! 


•344  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  Xo.  XXXII. 

JOHN    A.    QUITMAN — SECESSION    STRUGGLE    IN    MISSISSIPPI    IN 

1861. 

I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  heretofore  more  than  once 
of  a  gentleman  whom  I  knew  long  and  well,  and  whose 
distinguished  career,  both  in  peace  and  in  war,  seems  to 
claim  a  more  formal  notice  at  my  hands  than  he  has  yet 
received.  No  citizen  of  the  South  can  be  mentioned  whose 
character  and  acts  have  a  closer  or  more  important  con 
nection  with  the  great  historic  events  which  have  been 
occurring  during  the  last  twenty  years  in  the  State  of 
Mississippi,  and  in  several  adjoining  States,  as  well* as 
with  the  remarkable  consequences  which  have  iiowed 
therefrom,  than  those  of  the  subject  of  the  present  remi 
niscence. 

I  do  not  propose  to  write  the  life  of  General  John  A. 
Quitman.  This  I  learn  has  been  done  in  a  very  satis 
factory  manner  already  by  some  writer,  judged  by  the 
admirers  of  General  Quitman  to  be  altogether  competent 
to  this  task.  My  present  intention  is  to  bring  as  far  as 
I  can  into  a  distinct  and  luminous  view  a  few  of  the  more 
salient  points  in  his  busy  and  troublous  history,  and  to 
give  a  more  explicit  account  than  has  heretofore  been  pub 
lished  of  the  peculiar  relations  subsisting  between  that 
gentleman  and  myself. 

John  A.  Quitman  was  a  native  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  was  of  German  extraction.  He  received  an 
excellent  collegiate  education,  and  is  said  to  have  been 
intended  for  the  Christian  ministry.  When  he  reached 
mature  years,  though,  he  declined  this  vocation  and  re 
solved  to  devote  himself  to  the  profession  of  the  law.  He 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  345 

had  scarcely  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one  when  he 
migrated  to  the  State  of  Ohio.  There  he  did  not  remain 
long,  hut  somewhere  between  1820  and  1825  descended 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  and  reached  the  city  of 
Natchez,  where  he  located  permanently.  His  person  was 
one  of  great  irnpressiveness,  his  manners  were  those  of  a 
modest,  well-bred  gentleman,  and  his  habits  of  life  were 
such  as  were  well  calculated  to  commend  him  to  general 
esteem  and  confidence  in  that  rich  and  refined  commu 
nity.  He  was  fortunate  enough  very  soon  to  attract  the 
attention  of  Mr.  Griffith,  who  had  become  eminent  as  a 
lawyer  at  Natchez,  had  married  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Chief  Justice  Edward  Turner,  of  Mississippi,  and  obtained 
by  this  connubial  association  with  a  most  beautiful  and 
accomplished  lady  quite  a  competent  fortune.  I  may  be 
excused  for  mentioning  here,  in  passing,  that  Judge  Tur 
ner,  as  I  have  heard  from  his  own  lips,  was  a  native  of 
Fairfax  county,  Virginia,  and  was  nephew  to  that  par 
ticular  Mr.  Payne  who  is  represented  in  Weems'  "  Life  of 
Washington,"  as  having  knocked  down  General  Wash 
ington,  at  Fairfax  Court-house,  in  a  quarrel  which  acci 
dentally  occurred  between  them  at  that  place.  This 
curious  incident  is  set  forth,  by  Mr.  Weems  in  a  very 
graphic  and  interesting  manner.  The  descendants  of  this 
Mr.  Payne  are  now  scattered  through  Kentucky,  Tennes 
see,  Mississippi,  Arkansas,  and  Louisiana,  many  of  whom 
I  have  known  personally  in  former  years. 

Soon  after  the  partnership  just  mentioned  was  formed 
between  Griffith  and  Quitman,  the  latter  married  a  Miss 
Turner,  a  very  wealthy  and  accomplished  lady,  who  was 
cousin-german  to  the  wife  of  Mr.  Griffith.  During  the 
continuance  of  the  partnership,  which  was  only  termi 
nated,  at  the  end  of  four  years,  by  the  decease  of  Mr.  Grif- 
fith,-the  firm  divided  $54,000  of  net  profits,  as  I  have 
several  times  heard  mentioned  by  General  Quitman  him- 


34fi  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

self.  Quitman  then  formed  a  partnership  with  Mr.  John 
L.  McMurran,  which  lasted  until  the  former  was  made 
Chancellor  of  Mississippi,  which  last  event  occurred  about 
two  years  before  I  first  saw  the  subject  of  this  notice. 

Mr.  McMurran  married,  also,  a  Miss  Turner,  the  sister 
of  Mr.  Griffith's  wife,  took  a  very  high  position  at  the 
bar,  and  lived  for  many  years,  beloved  and  honored  by 
the  whole  community.  lie* was  my  intimate  friend  for 
many  years,  and  in  the  fierce  political  contest  of  1851 
sustained  me  for  the  office  of  Governor  against  General 
Quitman  himself,  mainly,  of  course,  in  consequence  of  his 
intense  devotion  to  the  Union  cause. 

General  Quitman,  when  placed  upon  the  chancery 
bench,  was  one  of  the  youngest  men  that  had  ever  been 
raised  to  a  judicial  office  of  such  high  dignity  in  any  part 
of  the  Republic,  lie  sustained  himself  well  in  this  very 
responsible  position,  and  continued  to  act  as  chancellor  to 
the  entire  satisfaction  of  intelligent  men  of  all  parties, 
until  he  at  last  voluntarily  resigned  his  office,  and  re 
turned  to  the  practice  of  the  law.  Meanwhile  he  had  be 
come  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  Mississippi,  and  was 
understood  to  live  in  a  style  of  almost  princely  elegance. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  certainly  one  very  credita 
ble  to  General  Quitman,  that  though  he  had  opposed  with 
more  than  ordinary  zeal  and  strenuousness  the  incorpora 
tion  of  the  principle  of  popular  suffrage  in  the  election  of 
judicial  officers  ;  and  though  the  new  constitution,  with 
this  feature  embodied  in  it,  had  been  almost  unanimously 
adopted,  yet  when  a  new  chancellor  had  to  be  elected  un 
der  the  amended  constitution,  he  was  re-elected  to  this 
dignified  post  without  opposition  from  any  quarter.  I 
had  the  honor  to  act  as  one  of  a  committee  of  three  (of 
whom  the  late  John  I.  Guion  and  Hon.  William  A.  Bod- 
ely,  of  Louisville,  Ky.,  were  the  other  two  members)  ap 
pointed  to  solicit  General  Quitman  to  be  a  candidate  for 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  347 

re-election.  I  may  be  allowed  to  mention  here,  as  rather 
a  curious  fact,  that  the  proposition  to  elect  judges  by  the 
people — a  thing  which  had  never  at  that  time  been  known 
in  this  country,  save  in  Connecticut  in  early  colonial 
times — was  first  made  by  this  Reminiscent  in  a  newspaper 
published  in  the  citv  of  Vicksburjj;  over  the  signature  of 

1  •/  O '  O 

"Thomas  Jefferson,"  more  than  forty  years  ago;  and  my 
numbers  on  this  subject  purporting  to  have  been  written 
upon  the  authority  of  this  eminent  Democratic  statesman, 
who  had  very  forcibly  recommended  this  mode  of  election 
in  his  celebrated  letter  to  Mr.  Kercheval,  to  be  found  in 
the  fourth  volume  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  works.  These  num 
bers  of  mine  were  responded  to  with  much  spirit  and 
ability  hy  Judge  Bodely — the  gentleman  already  men 
tioned — and  will  be  recollected  to  have  brought  on  apro 
n-acted  and  excited  discussion  at  the  court-house  in 
Vicksburg,  over  which  the  Hon.  William  L.  Sharkey 
presided.  The  connection  which  I  chanced  to  have  with 
this  interesting  question  prompted  a  popular  call  upon 
me  to  be  a  candidate  to  represent  in  the  convention,  which 
had  then  already  been  convoked,  the  large  Senatorial  dis 
trict  extending  along  the  bank  of  the  Mississippi  river 
for  about  two  hundred  miles  from  the  then  northern 
boundary  of  the  State  to  a  point  about  ninety  miles 
south  of  Vicksburg ;  and  I  moved  as  rapidly  as  I  could 
between  the  two  remote  points  mentioned  in  the  summer 
of  1832,  in  a  common  dug-out,  calling  on  all  the  voters 
residing  upon  the  bank  of  the  "  Father  of  Waters," 
drinking  for  the  most  part  the  muddy  water  of  the  river, 
and  subsisting  on  cheese  and  smoked  venison,  with  an 
occasional  small  supply  of  very  indifferent  bread.  When 
I  reached  the  lower  terminus  of  the  district  I  found  my 
self  in  the  hands  of  the  ague  and  fever,  and  before  I  got 
entirely  well  the  canvass  had  closed,  and  I  found  myself 
defeated  by  a  majority  of  about  forty  votes.  I  had  this 


348  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

consolation  only  over  the  disappointment  of  my  ambitions 
hopes:  A  very  able  man,  the  late  Eugene  McGehee,  was 
elected  over  me,  who,  abandoning  his  opposition  to  the 
popular  elective  principle  in  the  midst  of  the  canvass, 
openly  pledged  himself  to  support  it  in  the  convention  if 
elected.  This  gentleman  being  an  old  resident  of  Vicks- 
burg,  and  an  able  and  learned  lawyer,  was  very  naturally 
preferred  to  a  young  gentleman  who  had  not  then  lived 
long  enough  in  Mississippi  to  be  even  entitled  to  vote  in 
any  election  whatever. 

I  undertake  to  say  that  the  constitution  of  Mississippi 
embodied  the  popular  suffrage  idea,  in  connection  with 
judicial  elections,  earlier  than  was  done  elsewhere  since 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I 
was  induced  to  propose  it  in  the  manner  mentioned  in 
consequence  of  a  then  recent  perusal  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
writings,  in  which  this  mode  of  election  is  so  highly  rec 
ommended,  especially  in  the  letter  already  named,  ad 
dressed  by  him  to  a  Mr.  Kercheval.  There  is  scarcely  an 
instance  of  a  more  rapid  diffusion  of  any  political  notion 
whatever  so  directly  in  opposition  to  established  public 
sentiment  than  now  occurred  all  over  the  Union.  I  take 
no  particular  credit  to  myself  for  iirst  suggesting  this 
idea  in  Mississippi ;  and  it  would  be  indeed  very  ridicu 
lous  for  me  to  do  so,  for  I  hold  that  experience  has  plainly 
shown  this  change  in  the  mode  of  election  to  have  been  a 
great  and  most  deplorable  error,  since  for  many  years  past 
it  has,  as  I  think,  been  found  altogether  impossible  to 
keep  politics  out  of  the  judicial  elections;  and  hence  a 
great  and  constantly-increasing  deterioration  of  the  judi 
cial  department  of  our  system  has  been  observable. 

I  now  return  to  my  theme.  General  Quitman,  to  the 
surprise  of  all  who  knew  him  in  Mississippi,  in  1833,  be 
came  an  ardent  State-rights  man  or  nullifier,  and  took  a 
leading  part  in  getting  up  a  convention  in  the  city  of 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  349 

Jackson,  Mississippi,  for  the  purpose  of  indoctrinating 
this  State  with  this  dangerous  theory.  I  witnessed  the 
discussions  in  this  body,  and  immediately  reviewed  the 
same  in  the  columns  of  the  Mississippian,  and  with  so 
much  plainness  and  severity  that  General  Quitman  took 
serious  offense  thereat,  so  that,  in  truth,  we  did  not  speak 
for  several  years.  When  he  subsequently  ran  for  a  seat  in 
Congress  against  Mr.  Gholson  we  accidentally  met  one 
night  at  a  theater  in  Jackson,  and  became  cordially  recon 
ciled. 

The  Mexican  war  was  in  active  progress  when  he  ap 
plied  to  me  to  recommend  him  to  Mr.  Polk  for  the  com 
mission  of  a  brigadier  general,  he  evidently  supposing 
that  my  recommendation  would  be  of  some  avail  to  him 
in  the  matter,  on  the  ground  that  I  then  had  the  honor 
to  be  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate  for  the  State 
of  Mississippi,  though  I  had  not  yet  taken  my  seat  in 
that  body.  I  complied  with  this  request  most  cheerfully, 
and  the  more  so  perhaps  because  of  the  recent  disappoint 
ment  of  the  General's  aspirations  in  the  Senatorial  elec 
tion  heretofore  described,  in  which  Governor  Mc^sTutthad 
been  so  disastrously  overthrown. 

General  Quitman's  conduct  in  Mexico  was  eminently 
creditable  to  him.  He  fought  first  under.  General  Taylor 
in  the  region  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  afterward  under 
General  Scott  in  that  memorable  campaign  marked  with 
the  conquest  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  of  which  place  Gen 
eral  Quitman  will  be  remembered  to  have  been  for  several 
months  military  governor. 

During  his  sojourn  in  Mexico  he  frequently  wrote  to 
me,  and  in  more  than  one  letter  besought  me  to  see  to  his 
promotion,  declaring  that  he  had  no  other  friend  then  in 
Congress  from  Mississippi  upon  whose  support  he  could 
confidently  rely.  -Meanwhile,  Mr.  Davis,  whose  conduct 
in  Mexico  had  been  mentioned  favorably  by  General  Tay 
lor  in  his  official  reports,  had,  at  the  earnest  instance  of 


350  CASKET    01-    REMINISCENCES. 

myself  and  a  few  others,  been  appointed  by  Governor  A. 
G.  Brown  to  the  Senatorial  position  which  had  then  re 
cently  become  vacant  in  consequence  of  the  sudden  decease 
of  my  very  wrorthy  colleague  in  that  body,  the  Hon.  Jesse 
D.  Speight.  Mr.  Davis  was  a  Democrat:  a  planter:  and 
supposed  to  be  possessed  of  somewhat  more  than  ordinary 
intelligence,  who  we  thought  might  be  expected  to  get 
along  very  well  in  the  Senate  after  he  should  have  had 
the  advantage  of  a  little  official  experience.  Unfor 
tunately  he  and  General  Quitman  had  never  been  able  to 
harmonize  at  all  in  military  service,  and  Davis,  as  I  per 
sonally  know  to  be  a  fact,  and  as  was  very  well  and  pain 
fully  known  to  General  Quitman  also,  had  been  much  in 
the  habit,  both  in  Mexico  and  elsewhere,  of  ridiculing  the 
General's  claims  to  military  respectability. 

Out  of  this  state  of  things  consequences  soon  arose  of  a 
highly  disagreeable  character.  President  Polk  had  be 
stowed  upon  General  Quitman  a  brevet  nomination  for 
the  dignity  of  major  general  on  account  of  distinguished 
military  services  at  Monterey.  This  nomination,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  had  lingered  in  the  Committee  on  Mili 
tary  Affairs  of  the  Senate  for  some  time,  though  it  was 
known  that  so  soon  as  it  should  be  reported  back  to  the 
body  it  would  be  favorably  acted  upon.  Mr.  Benton, the 
chairman  of  the  Military  Committee,  had  been  absent  for 
some  time,  and  it  was  not  known  when  he  would  return. 
Meanwhile  Mr.  Davis  was  acting  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee.  On  the  very  day  before  the  volunteer  forces  of 
the  United  States  who  had  been  on  service  in  Mexico 
were  to  be  discharged  General  Quitman  came  to  my  house, 
on  the  Georgetown  Heights,  and  laid  the  above  facts  be 
fore  me  for  consideration,  saying  to  me,  "  My  dear  friend, 
my  military  reputation  is  iii  great  danger.  You  know 
well  Colonel  Davis'  unappeasable  animosity  to  me.  He 
has  a  thousand  times  traduced  me  while  we  were  in  ser 
vice  together  in  Mexico  ;  was  more  than  once  openly  in- 


CASKET    Of    REMINISCENCES.  351 

subordinate,  relying,  as  he  did,  upon  General  Taylor's 
known  partiality  for  him,  and  did  all  in  his  power  to  un 
dermine  my  fame  and  impair  rny  popularity,  both  with 
the  troops  that  I  commanded  and  with  my  fellow-citizens 
at  home.  I  fear  that  he  has  me  at  last  completely  in  his 
power,  being,  as  I  learn  to  be  the  fact,  the  present  acting 
chairman  of  the  Military  Committee  in  the  Senate,  before 
which  my  brevet  nomination  for  gallant  conduct  at  Mon 
terey  is  now  pending.  This  is  the  last  day  on  which  this 
nomination  can  be  confirmed,  for  the  forces  which  I  com 
manded  in  Mexico  will  be  to-morrow  discharged.  He, 
Davis,  must  be  made  to  report  back  the  nomination  to  the 
Senate  to-day,  or  I  shall  be  a  deeply-dishonored  man.  lie 
pretends  to  have  a  technical  objection  to  the  confirmation 
of  all  such  nominations  in  the  volunteer  branch  of  the  ser 
vice  ;  but  this  is  wholly  untenable,  as  I  will  in  a  moment 
show  you.  [He  then  handed  me  a  brief  of  the  legal  points 
involved,  which  I  at  once  examined  carefully  and  he  then 
resumed.]  Now  I  wish  you  this  morning  to  move  for  an 
executive  session  of  the  Senate  and  demand  of  Mr.  Davis 
his  report  upon  my  nomination.  I  care  not  whether  it  is 
favorable  or  unfavorable.  I  am  satisfied  that  your  appeal 
to  the  Senate  in  my  behalf  will  be  successful."  He  added  -. 
"  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  performance  of  this  duty  of 
friendship  will  involve  you  in  personal  difficulty  with 
Mr.  Davis;  but  I  am  asking  of  you  only  to  do  for  me 
what  I  feel  I  would  cheerfully  do  for  you  were  our  posi 
tions  exchanged."  I  at  once  answered  that  I  would  take 
pride  in  complying  with  his  request.  I  accompanied  him 
to  the  Capitol  ;  moved  for  an  executive  session  of  the 
Senate  ;  and  on  this  being  accorded  I  demanded  of  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  his  report 
upon  General  Quitman's  nomination.  Mr.  Douglas  aided 
me  in  the  movement  on  account  of  the  fact  that  his  friend, 
General  Shields,  occupied  a  position  similar  to  that  of 


352  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

General  Quitman.  Mr.  Davis  for  some  time  hesitated  to 
make  his  report.  When  he  did  so  it  was  an  unfavorable 
one.  Mr.  Douglas  and  myself  then  attacked  his  report, 
succeeded  in  overthrowing  its  reasonings,  and  got  both 
Quitman  and  Shields  confirmed  almost  unanimously. 
Very  bitter  words  were  spoken  on  this  occasion  between 
Mr.  Davis  and  myself  in  the  hearing  of  our  brother  Sena 
tors,  and  I  did  not  hesitate  to  charge  him  with  illiberality 
and  injustice  toward  a  meritorious  comrade  in  arms,  and 
I  even  menaced  him  with  the  exposition  of  his  unworthy 
conduct  to  our  constituents  in  Mississippi. 

General  Quitman,  when  the  result  was  reported  to  him, 
was  full  of  rejoicing  and  gratitude.     This  gentleman  was 
nominated,  not  long  after,  to  the  office  of    Governor  of 
Mississippi,  and  he  was  elected,  also,  chiefly  by   force  of 
his  military  popularity.      He  was    holding  the   office  of 
Governor  when  the  famous  compromise  struggle  of  18  >0 
occurred.     My  own  position    was    such    in    Washington 
that  I  stood  greatly  in  need  of  some  generous  and  devoted 
friend  at  the  capital  of  Mississippi,  and    I  fondly  looked 
in  the  direction  of  General  Quitman  for  sympathy  and 
support.     All. my  five  colleagues  from   Mississippi  were 
warmly  opposed  to  the  compromise  measures  of  1850, and 
became  much  offended  with  me  because  of  my  support  of 
them.     I  intend  no  offense  to  any  one  when  I  state  that 
they  secretly  combined  against  me  in    Washmgton  and 
used  what  influence  they  possessed  in  Mississippi  for  ni}* 
political  ruin.     General  Quitman,  I  grieve  to  say,  acted 
with  them.     The  Legislature  of  the  State  was  induced  to 
censure  mo  in  resolutions  of   a  particularly  disrespectful 
and  acrimonious  character.  My  five  colleagues  went  home, 
and  in  connection  with  Governor  Quitman  called  a  large 
public  meeting  at  the  city  of  Jackson,  and  set  on  foot  a 
new  political  party  to  be  called  the  State-Rights  party  of 
Mississippi,  of  which  all  were  invited  to  become  members 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  353 

who  were  opposed  to  the  Compromise  and  my  course  in 
support  of  the  measures  embodied  therein  without  regard 
to  previous  party  names  or  antecedents. 

T  irot  home  about  a  month  afterward.     I  found  almost 

o 

the  whole  Legislature  arrayed  against  me,  the  Executive 
department,  and  nearly  all  the  judicial  officers  of  the  State. 
The  newspapers  were  nearly  all  of  the  secession  stamp. 
Under  these  circumstances  [  plainly  saw  there  was  only 

•/  t/ 

one  course  to  pursue,  and  I  adopted  it.  T  immediately 
challenged  Governor  Quitman  to  public  discussion  of  the 
pending  questions  at  the  State  capital.  He  accepted  the 
challenge,  but  was  suddenly  taken  sick,  and  did  not  come 
to  the  field  of  expected  conflict.  T  went  to  the  capital 
myself  and  addressed  the  large  crowd  assembled,  in  lan 
guage  of  the  utmost  warmth  and  plainness,  and  announced 
my  determination  at  once  to  go  over  the  State  and  person 
ally  urge  the  people  to  assemble  in  convention  at  Jackson 
on  the  very  day  upon  which  the  Legislature  had  been 
summoned  to  reassemble.  T  went  forth  accordingly,  trav 
eled  night  and  day,  made  some  forty  public  addresses, 
and  on  the  day  that  the  Legislature  came  together  the  in 
dividuals  composing  it  learned  with  affright  that  a  popu 
lar  convention  of  fifteen  hundred  members  was  then  sit 
ting  in  the  City  Hall,  and  was  proceeding  to  rebuke  their 
own  treasonable  action,  and  to  censure  the  censurers.  Our 
convention  was  indeed  a  noble  body,  and  I  shall  ever  re 
gard  it  as  the  proudest  occasion  of  my  life  when  I  ad 
dressed  this  numerous  assemblage  of  upright  and  intelli 
gent  citizens,  standing  in  the  opening  made  by  the  re 
moval  of  a  large  window  in  the  City  Hall,  and  address 
ing  those  assembled  both  within  the  house  and  on  the 
outside.  The  resolutions  adopted  by  this  worthy  body  were 
soon  printed  and  cast  abroad,  and  I  then  proceeded  to  the 
hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  State  Legis 
lature,  and  demanded  a  hearing  from  that  body.  The 
.  23  R 


354  CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES. 

Mouse  adjourned  and  yielded  to  me  the  hall,  and  I  devoted 
full  two  hours  to  the  task  of  explaining  to  those  assem 
bled  the  dangers  of  the  hour.  After  this  1  proceeded  to 
Washington. 

When  the  next  summer  came  the  struggle  so  fiercely 
waged  in  Mississippi  had  to  be  brought  to  a  termination. 
A  convention  had  been  called  by  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  to  assemble  in  Jackson  in  the  succeeding  autumn, 
to  determine  this  precise  question :  "  Will  Mississippi  join 
South  Carolina  in  the  act  of  secession  from  the  Federal 
Union,  proposed  by  the  latter  State?"  This  question 
was  to  be  settled  by  the  election  of  delegates  to  the  con 
vention.  Some  one  was  to  be  elected  Governor  to  carry 
the  project  of  secession  into  effect,  provided  co-operation 
with  South  Carolina  should  be  determined  on.  Quitman 
was  nominated  as  secession  candidate  for  Governor.  I 
was  nominated  as  the  candidate  of  the  Union  party, 
called  into  existence  in  the  preceding  year.  We  took  the 
field  as  opposing  candidates,  and  confronted  each  other 
first  at  the  Capitol  in  Jackson.  Before  either  of  us  spoke 
I  said  to  him  in  a  low  but  very  distinct  tone  ,  "General, 
in  looking  over  the  past,  it  seems  to  me  a  little  strange 
that  I  should  now  find  you  in  combination  with  Davis 
for  my  overthrow.  Have  you  forgotten  my  contest  with 
him  in  the  United  States  Senate,  when  he  was  seeking  to 
destroy  your  well-earned  military  fame?  Have  you  for 
gotten  your  assurances  then  of  future  friendship?" 
"  Surely,"  he  said,  pretty  sternly,  "you  do  not  intend  to 
discuss  that  matter  to-day."  ''Certainly  not,"  I  replied, 
u  but  still  I  can  not  help  painfully  remembering  this  part 
of  our  past  history."  We  addressed  the  people  at  some 
length  in  Jackson  that  day.  We  met  on  about  seven  or 
eight  occasions  afterward,  when  he  found  his  cause  utterly 
indefensible,  and  resolved  to  break  up  our  joint  appoint 
ments.  For  this  purpose  he  insulted  me  grossly  at  a  place 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  855 

called  Sledgeville.  I  resented  it ;  we  fought,  arid  he  im 
mediately  published  separate  appointments.  I  went 
through  the  State  alone,  warning  the  people  everywhere 
of  the  perils  of  the  crisis.  By  the  time  we  both  got  back 
to  Jackson  the  election  of  conventional  delegates,  which 
preceded  by  a  month  the  election  of  Governor,  was  over,  and 
my  respectable  opponent  found  that  the  very  convention, 
the  calling  of  which  he  had  himself  recommended,  would, 
when  it  should  assemble,  declare  almost  unanimously 
against  the  breaking  up  of  the  Federal  Union.  Not  being- 
willing  to  encounter  the  actual  defeat  of  his  gubernato 
rial  claims,  which  he  saw  plainly  menaced,  he  at  once 
withdrew  from  the  canvass,  resigned  the  office  of  Gover 
nor,  and  went  home.  Mr.  Davis,  who  had  till  then  re 
mained  pretty  much  perdu,  was  brought  forth  as  a  candi 
date,  with  the  hope  that  by  adroitly  putting  this  bril 
liant  military  chieftain  upon  a  regular  Democratic  plat 
form,  and  declaring  that  all  further  thoughts  of  breaking 
up  the  Union  were  renounced,  they  would  be  able  to  cajole 
the  people  into  supporting  him.  But  in  a  few  weeks  he 
was  seen  wending  his  way  to  "  Briarfield,"  on  the  bank 
of  the  Mississippi,  where  he  would  have  slumbered  in  de 
served  obscurity  up  to  the  present  moment  but  for  Mr. 
Pierce's  calling  him  forth  to  give  him  another  chance  to 
ruin  his  country. 

General  Quitman  afterward  came  to  Congress  as  a  Rep 
resentative  from  a  district  where  he  was  personally  well 
known  and  much  loved.  lie  found  the  national  House 
of  Representatives  a  very  unfavorable  theater  for  the  ex 
hibition  of  his  particular  species  of  ability,  and  when  I 
last  saw  him  in  Washington  he  professed  to  be  greatly 
disgusted  with  the  conduct  of  some  of  those  with  whom 
he  found  himself  politically  associated,  and  even  talked 
seriously  about  resigning  his  seat.  A  few  mouths  after 
this  he  died,  and  was,  as  I  think,  exceedingly  fortunate 


356  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

iii  doing  so  before  all  the  terrible  evils  brought   upon  the 
country  by  secession  had  been  realized. 

Let  me  do  General  Quitman  justice.  He  was  truthful, 
honest,  brave,  of  a  slow  and  plodding  intellect,  but  in  re 
gard  to  ordinary  matters,  sound  and  practical  in  his  views. 
He  was  over  ambitious,  fond  of  taking  the  lead  in  all 
things,  somewhat  given  to  selfishness,  and  was  altogether 
the  dullest  and  most  prosy  speaker  I  have  ever  known 
who  could  speak  at  all.  With  a,  good  deal  more  of  solid 
intellect  tban.Mr.  Davis,  and  a  far  truer  heart,  and  sur 
passing  him  also  much  in  information,  he  was  inferior  to 
him  in  what  is  called  flippancy  of  expression,  and  he  was 
certainly  far  behind  him  also  in  impudent  effrontery,  in 
low  and  vulgar  cunning,  and  in  a  capacity  for  bringing 
into  advantageous  and  effective  use  the  multiplied  arts  of 
deception. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  857 


KEMIOTSCENCE  No.  XXXIII. 

ELIAB    KINGMAN— GENERAL     HENRY    A.    WISE — INTERNAL    IM 
PROVEMENTS  IN  VIRGINIA POLITICAL  BOURBONISM. 

I  propose  to  say  something  hero  of  two  individuals  as 
strikingly  contrasted  to  each  other  almost  as  it  is  possi 
ble  that  members  of  the  same  race  could  well  be,  at  least 
in  temper  and  habits  of  life,  as  well  as  :n  the  careers  that 
they  have  severally  run — albeit  there  is  mueh  in  the  char 
acter  and  example  of  each  of  them  quite  worthy  of  respect, 
of  love,  and  even  of  a  certain  sort  of  admiration. 

When  I  was  in  the  twelfth  year  of  my  age,  I  was  occu 
pied  in  front  of  my  quiet  paternal  home,  in  the  lower  part 
of  the  famed  county  of  Fauquier,  in  Virginia,  in  some 
trivial  employment,  on  a  tine  autumnal  evening,  when  I 
saw  riding  up  to  the  gate  which  opened  into  the  green 
and  shaded  yard  a  tall,  good-looking  young  gentleman, 
who,  after  having  inquired  whether  my  father  was  in  the 
house,  and  having  learned  that  he  was,  descended  from  his 
horse,  and  approached  the  mansion,  at  the  door  of  which  he 
was  met  by  my  loved  and  venerated  parent,  who  saluted 
him  cordially,  and  invited  him  to  enter  his  ev.er-hospi table 
abode.  It  was  but  natural  that  I  should  myself  feel  some 
curiosity  as  to  what,  might  turn  out  to  be  the  cause  of 
this  unexpected  visit.  This  was  soon  made  known,  for 
the  stranger,  before  seating  himself,  handed  my  father  a 
letter,  which  informed  him  that  the  name  of  the  bearer 
thereof  was  Eliab  Xingman  ;  that  he  had  recently  grad 
uated  at  some  celebrated  New  England  university  or  col 
lege,  and  that  he  had  now  come  South  to  obtain  employ 
ment,  if  he  could  do  so,  as  a  teacher  of  the  Latin  and 
Greek  languages,  and  of  the  ordinary  branches  of  an  En- 


358  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

glish  education.  I  saw  at  once  that  the  young  and  mod 
est  stranger  had  made  a  fine  impression  upon  my  paternal 
protector  and  guide,  and  that  the  long-desired  opportunity 
would  now  be  afforded  me  of  moving  forward  in  a  course 
of  intellectual  culture  which  I  had  been  always  taught  to 
regard  as  indispensable  to  the  character  of  a  refined  and 
well-bred  gentleman,  as  well  as  of  a  patriotic  and  useful 
citizen.  The  school  was  soon  organized,  and  Mr.  King- 
man,  in  a  week  or  two,  saw  around  him  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  boys,  all  of  whom  were  intent  upon  acquiring,  as 
rapidly  as  possible,  all  that  he  was  capable  of  teaching 
them,  and  of  fitting  themselves  in  this  way  for  the  multi 
plied  duties  of  the  life  which  lay  before  them.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  though  the  members  of  this  school  were 
in  general  assiduous  and  well-behaved,  yet  that  there  were 
a  number  of  scenes  occurring  during  the  year  indicating  a 
little  more  than  the  customary  vivacity  of  restless  boy 
hood,  and  it  is  certain  that  all  the  rules  of  decorum  pre 
scribed  by  our  youthful  magister  were  not  always  duly 
respected  ;  and  I  suspect  that  he  must  have  been  often  a 
good  deal  annoyed  by  ebullitions  of  exuberant  gayety  and 
frolicksomeness  which  he  was  compelled  to  witness.  But 
never  did  I  see  a  frown  upon  Mr.  Kingman  s  visage  dur 
ing  the  year  that  he  was  sojourning  among  us.  He  was 
always  cheeuful,  civil,  and  even  affectionate,  and  seemed 
to  take  the  greatest  delight  in  giving  such  aid  to  the 
pupils  under  his  charge  as  he  supposed  them  to  need  at  his 
hands.  He  lived  for  nearly  a  year  in  the  house  which 
had  given  me  birth,  was  uniformly  treated  as  if  he  had 
been  one  of  the  family,  and  when  he  left  us  for  a  more 
profitable  school  offered  to  him  elsewhere  there  was  not 
one  of  my  father's  family  who  did  not  painfully  regret 
the  loss  of  his  pleasant  and  instructive  society. 

Some  years  after  this  Mr.  Kingman  married  an  amia. 
ble  and  accomplished  Virginia  lady,  a  very  near  relative 


CASKET    OF    KEMINISOENCES.  359 

of  the  late  distinguished  and  most  meritorious  Confeder 
ate  officer,  General  Ewell,  and  located  himself  in  that 
portion  of  the  city  of  Washington  where  he  now  resides. 
Pie  very  early  purchased  here  a  considerable  quantity  of 
land,  then  cultivated  as  a  field,  wfiich  is  at  this  moment 
overspread  with  some  of  the  most  costly  and  tasteful  edi 
fices  anywhere  to  be  found  in  this  splendid  metropolitan 
city.  Here  he  continued  his  literary  studies,  which  he 
had  in  fact  never  much  pretermitted  ;  and,  while  thus 
becoming  a  man  of  large  and  varied  attainments,  he  occu 
pied  himself  for  many  years  with  the  preparation  of  va 
rious  well-written  articles  for  the  National.,  Intelligencer  and 
other  newspapers  of  eminent  standing  and  influence,  which 
very  soon  won  for  him  much  reputation,  and  which,  as  I 
suppose,  were  also  a  source  of  considerable  pecuniary 
profit.  While  I  had  the  honor  of  holding  a  seat  in  Con 
gress,  Mr.  Kingman  was  an  occasional  contributor  to  sev 
eral  well-known  newspapers ;  but  the  letters  from  his 
facile  pen  which  every  morning  appeared  in  the  Balti 
more  Sun,  over  the  signature  of  "  Ion,"  possessed  an  attrac 
tiveness  altogether  unequaled  at  that  period  in  this  class 
of  writing.  They  were  generally  short,  never  extending 
over  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  column  of  that  widely- 
circulating  gazette,  but  were  always  smoothly  and  beau 
tifully  written,  in  a  neat,  polished,  and  sometimes  very 
pointed  style,  ever  supplying  some  new  and  interesting 
intelligence  touching  current  Congressional  events  not  to 
be  found  elsewhere,  and  very  often  presenting  graphic  and 
racy  descriptions  of  eminent  public  men  then  upon  the 
stage.  These  articles  evinced  the  greatest  astuteness  of 
mind,  and  were  of  practical  utility  to  many  understand 
ings  not  much  inclined  to  receive  instruction  in  forms 
grosser  and  less  attractive.  I  have  long  thought  that  the 
letters  of  "  Ion,"  if  collected  and  published  at  this  time  in 
one  connected  whole  would  prove  alike  entertaining  and 


1(1  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

edifying   to   those  who   did   not   have  an  opportunity  of 
perusing  them  at  the  time  of  their  first  appearance. 

Mr.  King  man  is  now,  as  I  suppose,  somewhere  about 
seventy-five  years  of  age.  lie  is  yet  vigorous  and  active 
in  mind  and  body-  ;  is  as  cheerful  and  sociable  as  he  was 
when  I  first  knew  him,  more  than  a  half-century  since; 
and  his  remarkable  memory  seems  to  have  retained  with 
out  either  loss  or  discoloration  Ironi  the  influence  of  time 
and  the  varied  accidents  of  life,  all  that  he  has  ever  here 
tofore  learne<l,  either  of  men  or  things,  as  well  as  all  that 
the  calm  and  patient  study  of  a  lifetime  could  accumu 
late  amid  the  treasure-houses  of  science  and  scholastic  lit 
erature.  His  ordinary  conversation,  which  is  never 
marked  with  the  smallest  tincture  of  bitterness  or  envy, 
is  of  far  more  value  to  a  person  of  taste  and  discernment 
than  would  prove  the  boasted  volumes  of  many  professed 
authors  of  considerable  celebrity,  lie  is,  indeed,  as  pure 
a  model  as  I  have  ever  known  of  domestic  and  social 
excellence,  and  has  so  passed  his  life  as  never  to  have 
made  a  single  enemy,  or  to  have  been  accused  of  perform 
ing  a  single  act  of  which  an  Atticus  himself  would  have 
been  ashamed.  It  is  obvious  that  had  such  a  man  as  I 
have  described  been  ambitious  of  political  preferment, 
there  are  but  few  civil  stations  to  which  he  might  not 
have  aspired  without,  justly  incurring  the  charge  of  pie- 
sumption  :  but  it  is  hardly  possible  that  be  could  ever 
have  been  tempted  to  resort  to  those  expedients  which 
experience  has  shown  to  be  almost  indispensable  to  politi 
cal  advancement  in  a  republic  like  ours.  I  doubt  not 
that  it  is  for^him,  upon  the  whole,  better  that  he  should 
have  lived  a  life  of  quietude  and  repose,  and  have  been 
thus  able  to  preserve  to  old  age  the  feel  ings  of  philosophic 
serenity  and  unbroken  contentedness,  the  enjoyment  of 
which  the  golden  treasures  of  earth  are  not  ot  power  to 


CASKET    OF    EEMINISOENCES.  361 

guarantee,  nor  all   the  elibrts  of  the  unjust  and  malevo 
lent  of  this  world  capable  of  taking  away. 

lut<'i>vr  vit.-i1  sct'lcrisque  purus 
Non  f£<'t  Mauri  jaculis,  iifqiie  urcu, 
Xrr  vt'iK'iia'is  gravida  sagittfs, 
FUSCT,  pliaretra  ; 

Sivc  |  ><jr  Syrti's  ilcr  a'stuosas, 
81  ve  tactimis  prr  in  hospital  em 
Cancasum,  vel  qua-  loca  fabnlosus 
Lambil 


I  shall  venture  to  express  the  opinion,  though  to  all  this 
Opinion  may  not  appear  well  founded,  that  within  a  scope 
of  territory  not  more  than  a  hundred  miles  square  on  the 
Virginia  side  of  the  Potomac  a  larger  number  of  splendid 
and  useful  public  men  has  appeared  in  the  course  of  a 
single  century  than  any  other  country  can  claim  to  have 
produced  in  the  same  space  of  time  as  the  natives  of  a 
landed  region  of  no  greater  extent  and  inhabited  by  a 
population  not  more  numerous.  I  would  fix  the  begin 
ning  of  this  hundred  years  on  the  1st  day  of  January, 
1720,  and  close  it  on  the  last  of  December,  1819.  Persons 
whose  attention  has  not  been  specially  turned  to  this 
matter  will  be  a  little  surprised  to  see  the  number  of 
illustrious  names  which  adorn  this  list  of  the  great  and 
good  men  of  the  Old  Dominion  who  belonged  to  the  cat 
egory  specified,  a  small  portion  of  whom  only  will  be  here 
specified:  George  Washington,  Thomas  Jefferson,  James 
Madison,  James  Monroe,  i/atrick  Henry,  John  Marshall, 
Richard  Henry  Lee  and  several  brothers,  all  nearly  of 
equal  distinction  with  himself;  Light-horse  Harry  Lee, 
as  he  was  called  ;  George  Wythe,  George  Mason,  Chan 
cellor  I'endleton,  Spencer  Roanc,  Edmund  Randolph,  John 
Randolph  of  Roanoke,  Littleton  Walter  Tazewell,  Henry 


362  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Clay,  Chapman  Johnson,  Benjamin  Watkins  Leigh,  Wil 
liam  H.  Crawford,  John  Forsyth,  William  B.  Giles,  James 
and  Philip  P.  Harbour,  General  Scott,  General  Taylor, 
General  Harrison,  General  Gaines,  General  Robert  E.  Lee, 
Stonewall  Jackson,  William  C.  Preston,  James  Brown, 
General  Joseph  K.  Johnston,  with  numerous  others  of  a 
grade  only  a  little  interior  to  these.  I  certainly  intend 
to  do  no  wrong  to  my  loved  native  State  when  I  confess 
that,  from  the  operation  of  causes  a  little  difficult  to  ex 
plain,  she  does  not  seem  to  have  been  altogether  as  pro 
lific  of  illustrious  men  of  late  as  she  was  when  her  pop 
ulation  was  far  less.  I  would  not  undertake  to  assert 
that  she  is  not  even  at  the  present  time  nearly  equal  in 
her  number  of  distinguished  citizens  to  several  other  States 
whose  origin  was  very  nearly  extemporaneous  with  her 
her  own  ;  and  on  this  disagreeable  topic  I  prefer  to  say 
no  more  on  this  occasion  lest  I  should  tempt  some  one  to 
aPpb'  to  me  tne  well-known  words  of  Horace  : 

DiHicilis,  <|iieriilus.  landator  temporis  act! 
le  pnero,  censor  c;istigatorque  minorum. 

A  few  of  those  of  the  present  generation  whom  [  have 
more  or  les*  known,  and  who  may,  therefore,  be  classed 
as  coming  within  the  circle  of  my  reminiscence,  may  de 
serve  at  least  a  passing  notice. 

There  is  a  very  conspicuous  citizen  of  Virginia  whom, 
for  a  hundred  various  reasons,  I  have  always  regretted  not 
to  have  known  better.  Some  have  charged  him  with  be 
ing  eccentric,  as  most  men  of  genius  have  been  bv  the 
dull-headed  and  plodding  sons  of  obscurity,  whose  intel 
lectual  pinions  were  not  of  sufficient  vigor  and  pliancy  to 
lift  them  to  the  regions  of  the  upper  air;  for,  as  Byron 
very  justly  says: 

He  who  ascends  to  mountain-tops  shall  liixl 
The  loftiest  peaks  most  wrapt  in  clouds  and  snow  ; 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  363 

Tie  who  surpiiftf.es  or  .subdue.-  mankind 

Must  look  down  on  the  hate  of  those  below. 
Though  In'u'li  above  the  sun  of  ivlory  ^'low, 

And  far  beneath  the  earth  and  ocean  spread, 
Round  him  are  ley  rocks,  and  loudly  blow 

Contending;  tempests  on  his  naked  head. 

And  thus  reward  the  toils  which  to  those  summits  led. 

My  earliest  recollection  of  General  Wise  stands  associ 
ated  with  the  duel  between  himself  and  Mr.  Coke,  his 
first  opponent  for  Congress,  with  whom  I  have  heard  that 
he  had  very  fiercely  discussed  the  question  of  nullification, 
then  hroached  by  visionary  politicians  for  the  first  time, 
at  least  in  any  grave  and  formal  manner.  The  General 
was  then,  if  I  remember  aright,  a  champion  of  the  Union 
cause,  and  a  supporter  of  General  Jackson's  famous  pro 
clamation  against  South  Carolina. 

I  am  not  certain  that  I  ever  heard  of  Henry  A.  Wise 
until  about  the  time  he  first  became  a  candidate  for  Con 
gress,  though  with  his  previous  career  I  must  of  necessity 
have  since  become  familiar,  since  tor  nearly  sixteen  years 
past  I  have  resided  in  the  vicinage  where  his  public 
career  was  commenced;  and  concerning  his  early  life  I 
have  heard  a  thousand  anecdotes  from  the  lips  of  that 
genial,  high-souled  gentleman,  Bailie  Peyton,  and  from 
others.  Besides,  General  Wise  has,  within  a  year  or  two 
past,  published  a  brilliant  and  interesting  volume,  called, 
I  believe,  "The  Seven  Decades,"  in  which  he  has  told  the 
world  almost  as  much  of  the  particular  period  of  his  life 
referred  to  as  he  was  able  to  do  without  some  appearance 
of  egotism  ;  to  which  book  I  have  really  only  one  objec 
tion,  which  E  will  specify  :  I  think  that  he  has  been 
tempted  by  the  fervor  of  genius  to  make  too  harsh  and 
too  unkind  a  portrayal  of  his  old  friend  and  political 
leader,  Mr.  Clay,  for  whose  character!  have  far  more  both 
of  respect  and  affection  than  he  would  seem  now  to  cher 
ish. 


364  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

I  have  been  u  very  close  ami  interested  observer  of  Gen 
eral  Wise's  political  course  in  later  years.     Of  many  of  his 
public    acts  and    speeches  I  have  very  warmly  approved  ; 
others  of  them  I  have  very  decidedly  condemned.     I  have 
never  ceased,  though,  to  sympathize  kindly  with  him  on 
account  of  some  very  generous  and  striking  traits;  ofchar- 
acter  for  which  I  felt  hound  to  give  him  credit.      His  per 
sonal   bravery  is  as   undisputed  as  that  of  the   Chevalier 
Bayard  himself.     Jlis  integrity  and  truth  have  well  nigh 
passed  into  a  proverb,  and    his  complete    exemption  from 
what  Virgil  calls  the  auri  &trr<t  fame*  has  been  creditably 
conspicuous  in  every  stage  of  his  long  and  somewhat  tem 
pestuous  career.      His  temperament  is  a  remarkably  mer 
curial  one;  he  is  far    more  excitable    than    ordinary  men, 
and  phrenologists  would  upon  the  slightest   examination 
of  his  well-formed   cranium  pronounce  his  organ  of  com 
bat  iveness  to  be  developed  in  a  manner  very  remarkable; 
to  which    circumstance,  I   doubt  not,  he    is  in  a  great  de 
gree    indebted    for    the  manly  and    persevering  efficiency 
which  he    has  manifested    in  every  good  cause  in  whose 
furtherance   his  energies  have  at   different   times  become 
en-listed.     That   Mr.  Wise  is   richly  endowed   with   those 
qualities  which  tend  most  to  give  success  and  celebrity  in 
the  Held  of  popular  discussion,  is  a  proposition  which  no 
man  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  him  would  think  fora 
moment  of  denying,      lie  writes  also    with  great  facility, 
and  when  he    chooses  to    do  so,  is    capable   of  expressing 
himself  in  a  spirited,  vigorous,  and  exceedingly  pointed 
style,  such,  in  fact,  as  would  do  credit  to  any  of  the  more 
distinguished  authors  that  our  country  has  yet  produced. 
He  has  occasionally  written  at  great  length  upon  subjects 
not  very  interesting  to  the  more  numerous  class  of  Amer 
ican   readers,  and  has,  therefore,  in  such  instances,  failed 
to  secure  such  uniform  approval  of  the  deliberate  emana 
tions  of  his  genius  as  would,  perhaps,  have  been  accorded 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  365 

him.  But  I  have  seen  some  specimens  of  his  power  as  a 
writer  which  conclusively  demonstrate  that  he  lacked 
only  a  little  more  care  for  his  own  literary  reputation,  and 
a  somewhat  more  painstaking  spirit,  to  command  uni 
versal  recognition  as  a  bold,  original  thinker,  and  as  one 
of  the  most  vigorous,  persuasive,  and  eloquent  writers 
that  has  appeared  in  this  generation.  I  exceeding. doubt 
whether  Virginia  has  given  birth,  in  the  present  century,  to 
a  man  of  more  genius  than  Henry  A.  Wise;  and  I  have 
observed  with  much  satisfaction  of  late  that  lie  is  giving 
close  attention  to  works  of  science  and  to  the  develop 
ment  of  great  economical  truths — truths  which  have  a 
real  and  almost  inappreciable  value  to  all  the  States  of  the 
South  and  to  Virginia  in  particular,  at  the  present  trying 
period  of  her  history.  The  last  of  the  more  deliberate 
productions  of  General  Wise,  in  the  line  just  mentioned, 
is  an  address  delivered  by  him  recently  "before  the 
Literary  Societies  of  Roanoke  College,  in  Salem,  Vir 
ginia."  The  important  subject  discussed  by  him  is  very 
distinctly  presented  on  the  first  page  of  his  admirable  lec 
ture,  and  in  the  following  striking  words: 

North  America  is  yet  new,  and,  God  be  praised!  is  yet  hopeful.  My 
theme,  then,  is  : 

*k  The -physical  structure  of  the  domain  of  the  United  States,  and  its 
effect  in  the  past  and  the  present,  and  its  probable  effect  in  the  future, 
upon  their  progress,  power,  peace,  commerce,  and  constitutions  of  gov 
ernment.''1 

A  more  comprehensive  and  inspiring  subject  than  that 
herein  indicated  has  never  engaged  the  attention  of  men 
of  thoughtful  and  scrutinizing  minds  in  anv  a«*e  of  the 

*T*  v          9 

world.  To  say  that  General  Wise  has  done  justice  to  this 
grand  and  important  theme  would  be  but  moderate  praise, 
as  all  discerning  and  fair-minded  men  will  say  who  may 
read  his  interesting  and  edifying  address.  As  a  specimen 
of  the  calm  and  philosophical  style  in  which  his  views  are 


CASKET   OF    REMfNtSCENCfeS. 

enunciated   I    extract,  almost    at    random,  the  following 
paragraph  : 

Prior  to  the  year  1803  the  United  States  were  comparatively  con 
strained  in  their  limits,  but  the  epoch  of  that  date  determined  the  na 
tional  supremacy  ol  North  America  at  least,  if  not  eventually  of  the 
world.  Mr.  Jefferson  solved  the  problem  by  acquiring  a  territory 
which  conjoined  the  physical  geography  of  the  continent  with  the 
powers  which  governed  its  settlements.  The  Missouri  ami  Mississippi 
rivers  were  both  made  ours;  the  mouth  of  the  latter  was  joined  politi 
cally  with  its  head  ;  outlets  were  opened  ;  conflicting  riparian  rights 
no  longer  obstructed  internal  or  foreign  trade;  mountain  ranges  and 
water-sheds  and  quays  of  commerce  were  put  under  the  same  sov 
ereignty,  and  the  New  World  was  spanned  to  the  Pacific  by  an  empire 
of  the  United  States.  This  policy  was  completed  in  the  acquisition  of 
Florida  in  1810  with  her  barricade  of  the  Gulf  stream,  and  nature  was 
followed  in  her  plan  of  a  whole  and  compact  country.  Then  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  was  con  joined  to  the  physical  powers  and 
causes  which  control  the  continent  and  its  destinies. 

The  following  additional  extract  will  be  read  with  in 
terest  : 

The  junction  of  the  physical  geography  of  the  country,  with  its  po 
litical  powers,  by  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  and  Florida,  was  the 
first  epoch  of  internal  trade;  and  the  second  commenced  with  the  arti 
ficial  lines  from  the  coast  to  the  interior,  by  roads  and  canals,  trans 
verse  to  the  natural  lines  of  valleys  and  rivers.  George  Washington, 
in  this,  as  in  everything  else,  was  foremost  in  conceiving  and  com 
mencing  the  first  and  most  important  artificial  lines.  With  that  almost 
preternatural  prescience  which  was  to  be  looked  for  only  from  such 
wisdom  and  virtue  as  God  gave  him.  pre-eminently  he  foresaw  the 
necessity  of  connecting  the  month  of  the  Ohio  midway  the  valley  «  f 
the  Mississippi,  and  midway  between  the  lakes  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
with  the  mouth  of  the  Chesapeake  bay.  midway  the  Atlantic  coast,  on 
the  same  parallel  of  latitude.  We  can  hardly  imagine  that  then  he 
contemplated  the  great  artificial  belt  of  transit  uhiv-h  is  now  begun  be 
tween  the  Pacific  and  Atlantic  coast,  passing  through  the  whole  inte 
rior  of  the  continent,  lint  he  did  foresee  the  true  eastern  terminus  of 
that  belt,  and  projected  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  and  the  .lames  River 
and  Kanawha  canals,  and  they  are  now  the  most  important  works  in 
this  country  yet  to  be  constructed,  to  reach  the  great  interior  by  the 
shortest  and  cheapest  routes  of  trade,  and  to  bind  the  extremest  parts 
of  this  vast  country  together  by  the  strongest  bands  of  union. 


CASKET  ov  REMINISCENCES.  867 

I  wish  I  had  space  to  set  forth  here  what  General  Wise 
so  nobly  and  perspicuously  says  in  support  of  the  proposi 
tion  that— 

The  Mississippi  river,  by  its  flow  in  the  center  from  north  to  south, 
proved  the  surest  cordon  of  the  Tnion  of  these  States,  the  North  with 
the  South. 

I  can  not  refrain  from  citing  what  he  afterward  enun 
ciates  so  impressively  as  to  the  effect  of  the  late  civil  war 
in  bringing  about  the  extinction  of  slavery  : 

That  cause  alone  (slavery)  made  the  Southern  States  stagnant.  The 
globe  would  not  be  habitable  if  its  oceans  were  not  agitated  by  storms, 
evaporated  by  the  sun,  congealed  by  frost,  and  cleansed  by  perpetual 
currents.  And  as  of  the  currents  of  air  and  of  the  waters  it  may  be 
said  that  they  often  conflict  with  each  other,  yet  their  very  cyclones 
and  whirlpools  are  made  by  God's  providence  to  give  motion  and  puri 
fication  and  life  ;  so  of  our  civil  war  it  may  be  said,  1  hope,  in  time  to 
come,  that  it  gave  a  new  life  to  the  country  and  all  its  parts,  which 
may  atone  for  the  many  precious  lives  which  were  taken  away  by  its 
t4fire  and  sword."  Nothing  but  intra-territorial  war  could  have  given 
this  new  life  ;  and  it  was  sent  by  God,  not  only  because  the  exodus  of 
slavery  had  come,  but  to  make  the  motion  of  commerce  and  arts  and 
migra  ion  southward.  The  two  Virginias  will  now  be  filled  with  pop 
ulation  from  abroad  and  from  other  States  at  home,  and  the  whole 
South  will  soon  be  strong  enough  to  do  a  great  moral  duty  on  their 
part. 

If  these  views  be  sound,  (aild  who  will  now  contest 
them  V)  how  can  any  reasonable  man  doubt  the  justice 
and  wisdom  of  the  constitutional  amendments  which  se 
cured  to  the  Heaven-emancipated  colored  race  those  civil 
rights  without  which  freedom  would  be  but  the  most 
cruel  of  mockeries?  I  shall  not  willingly  believe  that  a 
man  of  General  Wise's  sagacity  could  fail  to  perceive  that 
the  communication  of  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  freed- 
men  of  the  South  was  the  natural  and  indispensable  ac 
companiment  of  universal  amnesty  to  those  of  the  white 
race  recently  in  rebellion.  Had  this  important  safeguard 
been  promptly  and  voluntarily  accorded  by  the  ancient 
white  residents  themselves  of  the  South,  immediately  after 


308  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  war  hud  closed,  so  that,  the  colored  inhabitants  of 
that  section  might  not  have  been  thrown  upon  fche carpet 
bag  gentry  tor  protection,  it  must  now  he  most  manifest 
to  nil  tliat  this  most  docile  and  affectionate  race  would 
long  since  have  become  thoroughly  assimilated  in  feeling, 
as  they  doubtless  are  in  interest,  with  those  who  had  pre 
viously  held  them  in  servitude;  and  this  Republic  would 
some  time  ago  have  enjoyed  that  repose  and  prosperity 
which  General  Wise  himself  seems  so  ardently  to  covet. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  man  of  General  Wise's  abilities 
and  popularity  will  not  be  inactive  at  this  important  mo 
ment  in  our  history  as  a  people  in  reconciling  all  good 
and  true  men  to  each  other  upon  the  only  possible  basis 
of  permanent  concord  and  prosperity:  "  The  Constitution 
fi$  it  />•,  and  the  laws  e:na<-teil  fur  the  enftn'i-einent  I  hereof" 
1  trust  to  be  excused  for  saying  that  such  a,  man  as  Gene 
ral  Henry  A.  Wise  has  no  right  to  bide  his  light  under  a 
bushel  now  when  the  country  seems  so  much  to  need  its 
guiding  influence,  more  especially  as  T  see  from  the  news 
paper  reports  that  ex-Senator  Hunter,  who  was  so  active, 
in  his  own  peculiar  mode,  in  bringing  on  the  late  civil 
war,  and  who  is,  next  to  Jctf.  Davis,  personally  responsi 
ble  for  all  its  dire  consequences,  is  now  pursuing  a  course 
well  calculated  to  revive  and  perpetuate  agitation,  and 
place  the  whole  colored  population  of  the  South  in  a 
state  of  never-ending  antagonism  to  the  white  inhabitants 
of  that  region.  Senator  Hunter  is  the  best  specimen  now 
extant  of  the  American  political  Bourbonite,  or  that  pe 
culiar  class  of  worthies  who  never  forget  anything  and 
never  learn  anything;  and  if  it  is  true,  as  T  am  told  is 
the  case,  that  he  is  now  every  day  insulting  the  whole 
colored  population  of  Virginia  by  asserting  that  u  expe 
rience  has  shown  that  they  are  not  true  Virginians, 
although  they  foe  native  born,  and  that  they  are  aliens  in 
feeling  and  sentiment,  in  sympathy  and  in  sensibilities,' ' 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCED  B69 

it  is  liigh  time  that  some  such  bold  cavalier  as  General 
Wise  should  gird  on  his  armor  to  prevent  the  building 
up  anew  of  the  carpet-bag  interest,  which  I  repeat  owes 
its  origin  and  continued  existence  alone  to  such  madness 
as  is  now  being  perpetrated  by  those  in  Virginia  and  else 
where  who  utter  such  unpractical  nonsense  as  is  daily 
reported  to  the  public  from  Mr.  Hunter's  lips.  It  reall}r 
seems  to  me  surprising  that  a  high-bred  Virginia  gentle 
man  like  Mr.  Hunter,  after  having  sought  so  earnestly 
the  restoration  of  his  political  rights  at  the  hands  of  Con 
gress,  as  he  is  known  to  have  done,  and  after  having  had 
his  disabilities  so  magnanimously  relieved  by  that  body, 
should  thus  seize  the  earliest  opportunity  presented  to 
him  of  making  known  to  the  world  that  he  feels  not  a 
particle  of  gratitude  for  the  favor  extended  him.  I  have 
a  very  painful  recollection  of  the  course  pursued  by  this 
distinguished  gentleman  and  his  late  colleague,  Mr.  Ma 
son,  in  the  Virginia  Democratic  Convention  of  1860,  held 
at  Charlottes  vi  lie.  The  latter  I  then  saw  for  the  last 
time  at  a  very  numerous  assemblage  of  the  people  who 
constitute  the  celebrated  Tenth  Legion  in  the  valley  of 
Virginia.  Mr.  Mason  addressed  that  meeting  in  a  very 
plain  and  frank  manner,  and  in  language  not  deficient  in 
distinctness,  avowed  the  fell  purpose  which  the  faction 
represented  by  him  had  then  in  view.  When  he  closed 
his  speech,  and  f  rose  to  respond,  he  became  much  agi 
tated,  (though  I  certainly  violated  no  rule  of  courtesy,) 
and  as  I  proceeded  to  unfold  the  whole  scheme  of  seditious 
resistance  then  on  foot,  and  to  warn  my  fellow-country 
men  of  the  dangers  impending,  hundreds  yet  living  saw  this 
gentleman  leap  from  the  back  window  of  the  court-house 
where  we  were  speaking,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  as  quickly  as  he  could  beyond  the 'sounds  of  popu 
lar  indignation  then  thunderingly  breaking  forth.  I 
have  never  yet  seen  one  of  the  prominent  fomenters  of 
24R  * 


70  CASKET   OF 

sedition  tliat  was  able  calmly  to  stand  tire,  and  T  should 
myself  willingly  travel  several  bund  red  miles  to  bear 
General  Wise  respond  to  one  of  Mr.  Hunter's  drowsy, 
phlegmatic,  and  over-crammed  political  discourses. 

My  first  personal  acquaintance  with  General  Wise  was 
formed  under  very  peculiar  circumstances.  He  had  fought 
for  a  long  time  in  support  of  the  Confederate  cause  most 
valiantly  and  faithfully,  lie  had  for  several  years  in  suc 
cession  been  compelled  to  go  through  as  many  trials  and 
sufferings  as  any  man  who  participated  in  that  struggle. 
A  cold-hearted  and  obstinate  executive  chief,  for  reasons 
which  T  could  never  precisely  divine,  had  kept  him  in  an 
official  position  far  beneath  the  grade  of  his  abilities  and 
the  value  of  his  actual  services.  He  had  still  fought  on, 
at  the  head  of  his  noble  legion,  with  uncomplaining  pa 
tience,  while  he  saw  daily  and  hourly  men  of  far  inferior 
capacity,  and  with  no  real  claims  to  special  consideration 
and  respect,  placed  abone  him  on  the  roll  of  promotion. 
At  length  the  disastrous  affair  of  Roanoke  Fsland  occurred, 
at  which  fatal  spot  he  lost  a  valiant  and  accomplished  son, 
whose  budding  merits  had  already  awakened  expectations 
ot  early  and  brilliant  distinction.  Just  about  this  time 
illiberal  and  unjust  rumors  were  set  afloat,  by  persons 
envious  of  General  Wise's  growing  fame,  which  gave  him 
peculiar  annoyance.  A  report  which  he  made  of  his  own 
military  conduct  on  a  most  important  occasion  was  sent 
to  the  War  Department  in  Richmond,  where  Mr.  Judah 
P.  Benjamin  was  playing  the  part  of  the  old  Old  Man  of 
the  Sea  whom  Sinbad  describes.  Mr.  Benjamin  would 
not,  acknowledge  officially  the  reception  of  General  Wise's 
report  unless  he  would  consent  to  let  it  pass  through  the 
hands  of  General  Iluger,  his  superior  in  command,  an 
individual  whom  he  well  knew  to  be  deeply  inimical  to 
him,  and  who  was  directly  interested  in  shifting  a  most 
crushing  military  responsibility  from  his  own  shoulders 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES^  871 

to  those  of  General  Wise  ;  so  that  the  latter  was  left 
without  any  adequate  means  of  vindicating  his  own  con 
duct  as  an  officer. 

It  was  precisely  under  these  circumstances  that  that 
courteous  and  high-bred  gentleman,  Colonel  James  Lyons, 
General  Wise's  brother-in-law,  came  to  me  and  urged 
that  I  should  in  the  House  of  Representatives  otter  a  res 
olution  demanding  of  the  Secretary  of  War  that  he  should 
send  to  that  bod}'  a  copy  of  General  Wise's  report,  with 
a  view  to  its  examination  there,  and  its  eventual  publica 
tion.  This  act  of  mere  justice  to  a  meritorious  officer  who, 
I  was  satisfied,  was  undergoing  cruel  persecution,  I  could 
not  in  honor  refuse  to  perform.  I  succeeded  in  attaining 
the  object  of  the  resolution,  upon  which  I  was  asked  by 
Mr.  Lyons  to  go  over  to  his  own  professional  office,  where 
I  was  told  that  General  Wise  was,  for  the  purpose  of 
enabling  this  gentleman  to  tender  to  me  his  thanks  for 
the  kindness  exercised  toward  him.  This  he  soon  did  in 
a  manner  most  knightly  and  impressive ;  since  which 
time  I  have  not  had  the  honor  of  meeting  him  or  of  hold 
ing  any  direct  intercourse  with  him  wiiatever. 


o7'2  CASKET   OF    REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXIV. 

VICKSBURCi     SENTINEL — DR.     II At1,  AN — GENERAL     ADAMS — GOV 
ERNOR  A.  G.  M'NUTT. 

Great  and  imperishable  is  the  fame  of  Vicksburg!  Re 
nowned  alike  in  peace  and  in  war!  I  beheld  it  when  in 
point  of  population  and  trade  it  was  little  more  than  an 
ordinary  village.  I  resided  there  when  many  person*  yet 
survived  who  mentioned  to  me,  as  a  matter  within  their 
own  personal  knowledge,  the  fact  that  the  beautiful  and 
romantic  site  which  has  since  been  the  theater  of  so  many 
great  and  memorable  events  had  been  exchanged  by  its  un- 
prophetic  owner  for  a  pitiful  horse,  not  worth  a  single  hun 
dred  dollars.  It  was  my  fortune  to  move  through  the 
streets  of  Vicksburg  not  many  years  after  my  eyes  had 
first  rested  upon  her  primeval,  cottage-like  residences, 
when  her  thronged  thoroughfares  had  become  the  resort 
and  permanent  abode  of  wealth,  refinement,  and  intelli 
gence,  and  when  her  steep,  alluvial  hills  had  been  over 
spread  with  splendid  edifices,  which  the  nobles  of  the 
earth  might  have  been  content  to  inhabit;  when  learned 
and  upright  judges  were  peacefully  and  satisfactorily  ad 
ministering  the  justice  of  the  land  in  well-constructed 
court-houses,  and  eloquent  and  accomplished  barristers 
were  almost  every  day  making  speeches,  such  as  >vould 
have  done  honor  to  any  people  under  the  sun.  I  have 
heard  political  discussions  in  Vicksburg,  continued  from 
day  to  day,  in  the  hearing  of  such  assemblages  as  even 
Cicero  or  Demosthenes  would  not  have  scorned  to  address, 
and  upon  questions  of  greater  dignity  and  importance 
than  either  the  populace  of  Rome  or  Athens  ever  had 
submitted  to  them.  Nearly  all  of  those  with  whom  I  once 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  373 

delighted  to  hold  free  anil  fraternal  commune  in  Vicks- 
burg,  forty  years  ago,  have  either  passed  to  the  grave  or 
have  migrated  to  distant  regions.  Were  I  now  to  visit 
this  scene  of  my  early  exertions,  it  is  possible  that  I  would 
not  meet  a  dozen  faces  that  I  should  recognize,  and  I  am 
quite  certain  that  I  might  go  there  and  spend  a  week  in 
some  frequented  public  house  without  awakening  any 
very  marked  sensation  in  any  segment  of  that  bustling 
and  rapidly  improving  metropolis. 

It  is  not  probable  that  I  shall  ever  again  survey  those 
loved  localities  once  so  familiar  to  me.  I  have  little  in 
clination  to  institute  minute  inquiries  now  as  to  how 
many  of  my  acquaintances  and  cherished  friends  of  a 
former  day  are  yet  lingering  where  I  last  encountered 
them  ;  but  yet  are  there  incidents  wliich  occurred  in  my 
young  days  of  hopefulness  and  vigor  of  which  I  yet  cher 
ish  recollections  alike  pleasant  and  mournful. 

In  1832  I  established,  in  connection  with  an  esteemed 
friend  and  brother-in-law,  Mr.  II.  P.  Oatlett,  the  newspa 
per  known  as  The  Mississippian,  for  many  years  recog 
nized,  in  subsequent  years,  and  in  the  hands  of  several 
successive  editors,  as  the  faithful  and  efficient  organ  of 
what  was  known  as  the  Democratic  party  of  Mississippi. 
Caesar,  when  falling  before  the  violence  of  infuriate  con 
spirators,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  :  "  Et  tu  Brute,  mi 
Jill  r  The  dying  eagle  has  been  poetically  depictured  as 
doubly  bewailing  his  own  death-wound  when  he  found 
the  arrow  which  had  pierced  his  vitals  had  been  feathered 
with  the  plumage  of  his  own  wing.  And  so  I,  if  at  all 
given  to  lamentation  over  the  past,  might,  perhaps,  with 
some  reason,  complain  that  the  most  unsparing  assailment 
with  which  I  have  been  visited  at  several  noted  periods 
of  my  bustling  career  has  originated  in  the  columns  of 
that  far-famed  journal,  in  relation  to  which  Governor 
McXutt  is  said  to  have  ejaculated,  in  the  very  latest  mo- 


374  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

nients  of  his  checkered  life:  u  Where  is  the  Mississippian ?" 
I  lived  long  enough  in  Mississippi  to  find  the  time-honored 
Democratic  party  there  resolved  into  a  mere  Secession  fac 
tion,  and  to  have  painful  assurance  given  me  that  no  man 
could  any  longer  support  his  long-cherished  principles 
upon  the  soil  of  Mississippi,  in  opposition  to  the  behests 
of  shallow  and  selfish  factionists,  without  finding  himself 
denounced  as  a  political  changeling,  an  eccentric,  a  mad 
man,  and  a  dotard  ;  and  in  the  face  of  all  this  I  could  well 
have  smiled,  had  1  not  feared  that  those  by  whom  such 
epithets  were  so  unkindly  applied  would  themselves  in 
the  end  be  fated  to  s utter  almost  beyond  human  tolerance 
as  the  natural  consequence  of  their  own  delusion  and  folly. 
No  man,  I  assert  confidently,  has  ever  loved  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Mississippi  more  than  I  have  done.  They  are, 
in  the  main,  an  intelligent,  high-spirited,  and  liberty-lov 
ing  people.  My  heart  has  often  bled  over  the  suffer; rigs 
they  have  been  compelled  to  endure  since  last  L  had  an 
opportunity  of  raising  a  warning  voice  in  their  midst  in 
reference  to  the  manifold  and  perhaps  remediless  evils  into 
which  the  maniacal  counsels  of  others  have  so  wofully  be 
trayed  them  ;  of  men  who  have  nearly  all  already  gone 
down  to  dishonorable  graves,  or  who  survive  as  wretched 
monuments  of  public  contempt  and  ridicule.  I  trust  not 
to  be  suspected  of  insincerity  when  I  declare  that  I  yet 
love  the  Mississippi  of  to-day,  dressed  as  she  is,  in  the 
sight  of  the  whole  world,  in  the  garments  of  humiliation 
and  sorrow,  far  more  than  I  did  the  same  Mississippi  in 
the  days  of  her  palmy  prosperity  and  power.  I  do  most 
profoundly  commiserate  those  troubles  which,  alas !  it  is 
not  at  all  in  my  power  to  alleviate.  My  mind  often  re 
verts  to  scenes  which  had  their  progress  in  that  far-off 
sunny  region  in  former  years,  and  ;i  few  more  of  these  I 
now  propose  to  call  up  for  the  consideration  of  those  who 
shall  honor  these  Reminiscences  with  a  transient  notice 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  375 

In  the  year  1881  the  somewhat  memorable  adrninistra- 
tion  of  Governor  A.  G.  Mc-Nutt  reached  its  termination. 
He  was  succeeded  in  the  office  which  he  had  for  four  years 
occupied  by  an  individual  of  very  different  temper  and 
character.  I  allude  to  Governor  Tucker,  who  was  a  man 
of  sound  and  vigorous  intellect,  of  a  chastened  and 
moderate  ambition,  and  of  a  lofty  independence  worthy 
of  all  praise.  The  discussions  which  had  taken  place  in 
the  canvass  preceding  Governor  Tucker's  election  had 
been  of  a  nature  calculated  not  a  little  to  gall  the  sensi 
bilities  of  Governor  McNutt,  and  mortify  his  pride.  Gov 
ernor  Tucker  had  taken  the  ground  that  his  immediate 
predecessor,  in  subscribing  and  causing  to  be  sold  the 
bonds  of  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  Union 
Bank  into  existence,  had  exceeded  his  constitutional  au 
thority,  and  made  himself  responsible  for  evils  under  the 
experience  of  which  the  people  of  the  State  were  even 
then  audibly  groaning.  Without  goin^;  at  this  moment 
into  the  merits  of  a  question  at  that  time  much  and 
warmly  controverted  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  Governor  Me^uitt,  though  himself 
vehemently  opposed  to  the  payment  of  these  same  bonds, 
and  ambitious  to  enhance  his  popularity  as  much  as  possi 
ble  by  the  agitation  of  the  question  of  their  repudiation, 
was  yet  by  no  means  pleased  with  the  frank  and  out 
spoken  manner  in  which  Governor  Tucker  had  under 
taken  to  allude  to  the  facts  which  fixed  upon  him  the 
chief  responsibility  of  their  issue  and  negotiation.  Gov 
ernor  Tucker,  therefore,  on  coming  into  office,  very  soon 
found  Governor  McNutt  exceedingly  hostile  to  him,  and 
inclined  to  cast  as  many  impediments  as  he  could  in  the 
way  of  his  administration.  This  was  truly  an  embarrass 
ing  state  of  affairs  ;  for  Governor  McNutt,  who  was  one 
of  the  best  haters  I  ever  knew,  and  who,  I  am  sure,  was 
never  known  to  forgive  any  human  being  that  had  ever 


376  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

done  him  injury  of  any  kind,  very  soon  made  it  evident 
that  he  was  tar  from  intending  to  confine  his  opposition 
to  unkind  and  sneert'ul  remarks  upon  his  official  acts,  and 
that  he  had  resolved  to  do  what  he  could  to  array  against 
him  and  his  administration  several  leading  Democratic 
newspapers,  the  conductors  of  which  had  long  recognized 
him  as  a  sort  of  political  oracle.  It  is  needless  now  to 
speculate  as  to  what  precise  motives  influenced  Governor 
MeXutt  in  pursuing  the  course  which  has  just  been  de 
scribed,  it  may  have  i>een  in  part  owing  to  his  desire  to 
hold  under  his  permanent  control  the  parry  machinery  of 
every  kind  which  he  had  been  for  several  years  permitted 
to  wield  with  un resisted  sway,  together  with  the  fear 
which  he  entertained  that  Governor  Tucker  could  not  be 
induced  to  favor  his  election  to  the  United  States  Senate, 
which  position  it  was  already  well  known  he  was  confi 
dently  expecting  to  reach.  It  is  probable  that  lie  was,  at 
least  in  part,  actuated  by  feelings  of  personal  ill-will  to 
ward  the  just-minded  and  truly  patriotic  man  who  had 
now  succeeded  him.  Certain  it  is,  that  Governor  Tucker 
had  hardly  been  inaugurated  before  the  storm  of  persecu 
tion  began  to  rage.  A  dozen  little  newspapers,  known  to 
be  completely  under  Governor  McNutt's  influence,  were 
perpetually  pouring  forth  their  ill-natured  complaints 
against  the  Governor  then  in  office,  and  endeavoring  in 
every  way  effectually  to  break  down  his  public  character. 
Nor  did  bis  private  reputation  altogether  escape  their  ani 
madversion  ;  and,  indeed,  all  persons  officially  connected 
with  him,  or  who  presumed  in  a  public  manner  to  express 
their  disapproval  of  this  wholly  unprovoked  warfare, 
had  to  come  in  for  their  share  of  opprobrium  and  ridicule. 
By  far  the  most  intellectual  and  accomplished  of  those 
who  had  enlisted  in  this  terrible  war  of  defamation  was 
an  individual  who  was  then  resident  in  Vicksburg,  and 
who  was  there  occupying  the  editorial  tripod  of  a  paper 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  377 

called  The.  ftentind.  This  gentleman  I  had  known  quite 
familiarly  long  before  ho  had  located  in  the  Slate  of  Mis 
sissippi,  and  my  relations  with  him,  though  not  those  of 
close  andeontidential  intimacy, had  been  uniformly  marked 
with  mutual  civility  and  kindness.  Dr.  James  liagan 
was  in  many .  respects  a  very  remarkable  man.  lie  was 
born  in  Ireland,  had  been  thoroughly  educated  at  the 
University  of  Dublin,  and,  after  attaining  manhood,  had 
been  an  unremitted  reader  of  books,  so  as  to  have  become 
a  man  of  great  and  varied  knowledge.  His  pen  had  been 
kept  in  almost  constant  exercise  for  many  years,  in  conse 
quence  of  which  he  had  acquired  a  style  of  composition 
at  once  clear,  polished,  vigorous, and  flowing.  lie  chiefly 
delighted  in  satire  and  ridicule,  and  in  both  of  these  he 
was  most  potential,  lie  was  exceedingly  ambitious  of 
notoriety,  and  a  little  reckless  of  truth  and  justice  when 
he  thought  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  exercise  his  powers 
of  detraction  upon  some  individual  of  established  repu 
tation  and  of  known  influence,  whom  less  aspiring  con 
tributors  to  the  newspaper  press  did  not  deem  it  altogether 
prudent  to  assail.  He  located  himself,  about  the  year 
1829  or  1830,  in  the  little  village  of  Occoquan,  in  the 
State  of  Virginia,  and  here,  I  believe,  had  for  some  time 
practiced  the  profession  of  medicine.  While  thus  sojourn 
ing  at  a  point  only  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  residence 
of  one  of  the  most  celebrated  and  accomplished  men  that 
Virginia  has  ever  produced — Judge  Alexander  G.  Dade— 
he,  in  some  way,  got  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  this  gen 
tleman,  and  several  of  the  judges  of  the  general  court  of 

•/  O  O 

the  State  besides,  had  been  in  the  habit  for  several  years 
of  making  their  annual  journey  to  Richmond  by  water, 
instead  of  proceeding  thither  by  a  much  shorter  land 
route,  and  of  charging  mileage  for  the  whole  number  of 
miles  which  they  had  to  travel  along  the  Totomac,  the 
Chesapeake  bay,  and  the  river  James.  Dr.  liagan  re- 


•378  CASKKT    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

solved  to  ventilate  tliis  matter,  and  lie  did  so  in  a  series 
of  the  most  catting  article*;  I  ever  rend.  Judge  Dade  at 
tempted  to  respond  to  liis  objurgatory  criticisms,  but,  not 
withstanding  his  high  abilities,was  most  decidedly  worsted 
in  the  conflict.  This  affair  gave  Dr.  J lagan  much  edat, 
and  he  resolved  to  seek  a  wider  theater  tor  the  display  of 
his  extraordinary  powers.  I  saw  him  myself  for  the  first 
time  in  the  summer  of  183<>,  at  one  of  the  hotels  in  Wash 
ington,  lie  sought  my  acquaintance,  and  we  soon  fell 
into  an  animated  conversation  upon  the  questions  involved 
in  the  Presidential  election  of  that  period.  The  Doctor 
then  professed  a  warm  admiration  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  of 
the  extreme  State-rights  theory,  of  which  Mr.  Calhoun 
was  the  most  prominent  expounder,  lie  was  bitterly  op 
posed  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  assailed  him  with  much  se 
verity  in  this  interview.  We  talked  for  several  hours 
with  much  heat  and  acrimony  on  both  sides,  but  without 
any  decided  approach  to  a  personal  quarrel.  When  1  next 
met  with  him  he  had  taken  up  his  residence  in  Vicks- 
burg,  where  he  soon  after  assumed  that  vocation  to  which 
a  few  years  subsequent  he  unfortunately  fell  a  victim. 

No  such  editorial  writer  as  Doctor  1  lagan  had  ever  before 
appeared  in  the  State  of  Mississippi,  and  Governor  McNutt 
was  shrewd  enough  to  discern  at  once  that  it  might  fa 
cilitate  the  accomplishment  of  his  own  views  of  individ 
ual  ambition  very  much  if  he  could  in  seme  way  manage 
to  conciliate  this  rising  genius.  What  he  did  for  this 
purpose  I  have  never  precisely  ascertained,  but  it  is  cer 
tain  that  Dr.  Hagan,  despite  some  noted  differences  be 
tween  himself  and  Governor  McNutt,  upon  several  polit 
ical  questions  of  great  importance,  became  in  process  of 
time  completely  devoted  to  that  personage,  and  the  Senti 
nel  was  by  all  recognized  as  Governor  MeNutfs  veritable 
political  organ.  The  manifold  corruptions  of  the  bank 
ing  system  then  existing  in  Mississippi  opened  to  Doctor 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  379 

Hagan  a  rich  and  inviting  field  for  the  exercise  of  his 
peculiar  talents.  For  several  years  he  attacked  with  great 
bitterness  the  acts  and  characters  of  those  .whom  he  judged 
to  be  chiefly  responsible  for  the  financial  evils  then  sorely 
oppressing  all  classes  of  the  people.  Every  now  and  then 
he  issued  a  bulletin  against  Centralism,  of  which  he 
seemed  to  stand  in  the  greatest  dread,  llis  strictures 
upon  the  conduct  of  individuals  in  conspicuous  social  po 
sition  attracted  remarkable  attention,  and  the  withering 
seventy  of  his  satiric  allusions  to  persons  whose  apparent 
prosperity  was  calculated  of  itself  to  awaken  envy  in  ig 
noble  bosoms  naturally  constituted  him  a  very  Corypheus 
of  the  suffering  population.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
other  editor  that  this  country  has  produced  has  been 
known  with  impunity  to  indulge,  for  so  long  a  space  of 
time,  as  freely  as  Dr.  Hagan,  in  language  of  the  harshest 
personal  invective.  llis  newspaper  had  actually  become 
an  object  of  mingled  dread  and  hatred  to  large  numbers 
of  peace-loving  and  law-respecting  people  all  over  the 
Southwestern  States.  It  was  sought  for  everywhere  with 
eagerness,  and  was  read  with  fhe  utmost  interest  by  thou 
sands  and  tens  of  thousands  all  over  the  country.  I  had 
been  in  constant  apprehension  for  several  months  anterior 
to  his  tragic  end  that  the  patient  forbearance  with  which 
his  terrible  diatribes  had  been  so  long  tolerated  would 
soon  give  place  to  feelings  of  fiery  resentment  on  the  part 
of  some  high-spirited  citizen,  and  perhaps  to  some  attempt 
at  a  desperate  and  bloody  revenge.  I  therefore  visited 
Yicksburg  just  ten  days  before  Dr.  J lagan's  demise,  and 
remonstrated  with  him  in  the  most  solemn  and  earnest 
manner  against  the  further  pursuance  of  that  course  of 
sweeping  revilernent  in  which  he  had  been  for  several  years 
engaged,  and  which  I  ventured  to  assure  him  could  only  be 
productive  in  the  end  of  great  mischief,  as  well  to  the 
public  as  to  himself.  I  brought  to  his  attention  the  fact 


380  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

that  liis  abilities  were  of  so  high  a  cast  that  he  could 
have  no  difficulty  whatever  in  reaching  the  loftiest  posi 
tion  of  civil  dignity  if  he  would  but  pay  more  regard 
to  the  rules  of  social  decorum  and  the  laws  of  a  hi^h- 

o 

bred  courtesy,  lie  confessed  very  frankly  the  soundness 
of  my  admonitory  suggestion,  and  declared  to  me  with 
much  apparent  feeling  that  he  had  several  times  resolved 
upon  conducting  his  paper  in  a  manner  more  civil  and 
kindly,  but  that  he  had  found  the  outside  pressure  upon 
him  for  the  preparation  of  articles  of  a  fiercely  denuncia 
tory  character  too  strong  to  be  resisted. 

After  this  interview  I  saw  him  no  more.  When  Gov 
ernor  Tucker  had  been  nominated  for  the  high  executive 
office  which  he  afterward  so  worthily  filled,  an  individual 
was  associated  with  him  upon  the  State  Democratic  ticket 
as  a  candidate  for  the  responsible  office  of  Treasurer,  in 
support  of  whom  I  found  myself  not  able  to  vote  with 
out  incurring  the  loss  of  my  own  self-respect,  liis  name 
was  Graves.  I  had  long  known  him  as  an  unscrupulous 
demagogue,  and  I  was  satisfied  that,  if  elected  to  the 
position  of  Treasurer,  some' great  act  of  official  treachery 
would  infallibly  ensue.  I  was,  indeed,  so  fully  persuaded 
of  the  danger  of  electing  this  miscreant  that  I  did  not  hes 
itate  to  warn  my  neighbors  and  fellow-citizens,  and  in  the 
plainest  language,  of  the  mischief  likely  to  arise  from  their 
giving  him  their  support  in  opposition  to  the  worthy 
individual,  Dr.  Curtis,  (now  a  respected  citizen  of 
California,)  wlioni  the  Whigs  had  nominated  on  their 
party  ticket.  Party  allegiance,  though,  was  too  strong 
to  be  overcome  by  reason  or  considerations  of  patriotism, 
so  Mr.  Graves  was  foisted  upon  the  State  treasury.  There 
he  had  not  been  more  than  a  week  or  two  before  he  was 
able  to  project  a  scheme  of  i'raud  of  which  there  are 
but  few  parallels  in  the  history  of  any  country.  A  large 
amount  of  the  money  of  the  State,  deposited  in  his  keep- 


CASKET   OF   KEMltilSCENCFA  881 

ing,  was  dexterously  abstracted  and  applied  to  Iris  own 
use.  So  soon  as  the  discovery  of  his  misconduct,  in  this 
affair  was  made,  Governor  Tucker  took  the  most  prompt 
measures,  alike  to  save  the  State  from  further  pecuniary 
loss  and  to  bring  this  enormous  malefactor  to  justice.  An 
accomplished  and  venerable  jurist,  the  late  George  VV. 
Adams,  was  employed  to  aid  the  Attorney  General  in 
the  institution  of  a  suit  in  chancery,  and,  at  the  instance 
of  certain  public-spirited  citizens,  I  agreed  to  co-operate 
with  the  same  officer  in  the  commencement  of  appropri 
ate  criminal  proceedings.  The  dignity  of  the  case  was 
such  that  we  determined  to  demand  of  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  State,  the  lion.  William  L.  Sharkey,  to  act  as  a 
Court  of  Inquiry,  and  before  this  learned  and  upright 
officer  for  several  days  we  were  diligently  arraying  the 
testimony  against  the  accused,  when,  on  a  certain  Sab 
bath  day,  (the  court  having  adjourned  over  until  Mon 
day,)  the  wife  of  the  accused  having  been  humanely  al 
lowed  to  visit  him,  he  adroitly  exchanged  vestments  with 
her,  and  made  his  escape  to  parts  unknown. 

Meanwhile  the  chancery  suit  spoken  of  was  in  active 
progress.  Governor  Tucker  had  paid  Judge  Adams  for 
his  invaluable  services  therein  out  of  the  contingent  fund 
of  the  State  the  very  moderate  fee  of  tive  hundred  dol 
lars. 

So  soon  as  this  transaction  became  known  at  Vicksburg, 
where  Governor  McNutt  chanced  to  be  at  the  moment, 
an  article  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  Sentinel,  headed 
"More  Stealing  in  Jackson,"  in  which  both  Governor 
Tucker  and  Judge  Adams  were  mentioned  in  terms  of 
the  coarsest  and  most  insulting  crimination.  It  is  not 
probable  that  either  of  these  upright  personages  would 
have  felt  called  upon  to  notice  this  attack,  which  in  truth 
could  not  possibly  have  done  either  of  them  the  smallest 
permanent  detriment.  But  it  happened  that  Daniel  W. 


•J82  CASKET   OF* 

Adams,  a  young  and  high-spirited  son  of  .Judge  Adams, 
who  had  returned  home  from  college  only  a  day  or  two 
previously,  got  sight  of  this  article  in  the  titmlinel  before 
its  appearance  had  become  known  to  his  father,  and  ex 
cited,  as  it  was  but  natural  he  should  be,  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  indignation,  he  proceeded  at  once  to  Yicksburg 
in  order  to  seek  atonement  for  the  outrage  which  had 
been  perpetrated.  He  did  not  know  l>r.  I  lagan  person 
ally,  but  be  had  heard  that  he  was  a  singularly  brave  and 
determined  man  ;  that  he  generally  went  armed,  and  that 
be  had  before  that  time  been  uniformly  successful  in  the 
various  conflicts  in  which  he  had  been  engaged.  On 
reaching  Vicloburg  this  deeply-aggrieved  and  highly-en 
raged  young  man  went  immediately  in  pursuit  of  Dr. 
Hagan.  He  found  him  returning  from  a  dinner-party, 
owing  to  which  fact,  most  probably,,  lie  was  for  the  mo 
ment  unarmed  :  of  which  state  of  things,  though,  it  was 
impossible  that  Adams  should  have  been  apprised.  He 
accosted  Ilagan,  and  inquired  of  him  whether  he  was  the 
editor  of  the  Sentinel,  which  paper  he  then  held  in  his 
hand.  On  being  answered  in  the  affirmative  he  called  bis 
attention  to  the  offensive  article  in  relation  to  his  father, 
and  demanded  an  immediate  retraxit  of  it.  Dr.  Ilagan 
made  no  reply,  but  rushed  upon  young  Adams,  seized  him 
strongly  by  the  waist,  and  quickly  prostrated  him  upon 
the  earth.  Adams  could  not  but  then  regard  his  situa 
tion  as  one  of  great  peril.  He  bad  been  overcome  in  the 
struggle  which  had  just  taken  place.  In  falling  violently 
to  the  ground  his  eyes  had  been  tilled  with  dust,  and  be 
bad  every  reason  to  apprehend  that  Hagan,  who  yet  held 
him  firmly  in  his  grasp,  would,  in  a  second  or  two,  either 
cut  his  throat  or  blow  out  his  brains.  Under  these  cir 
cumstances  he  did  just  what  [  presume  every  man  of 
adequate  presence  of  mind  would  do  if  similarly  situated: 
be  drew  one  of  his  own  pistols  from  bis  bosom,  reached 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  883 

Up  to  the  back  part  of  [lagan's  head,  placed  in  contact 
with  it  the  muzzle  of  the  pistol,  and  tired,  ilagan  re 
ceived  the  contents  of  the  pistol  in  the  cerebellum,  and 
immediately  expired. 

When  Adams  had  succeeded  in  releasing1  himself  from 

& 

the  grasp  of  his  now  exanimate  antagonist  and  had  risen 
to  his  feet,  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  very  excited 
crowd.  When  asked  who  had  slain  Hagan  he  replied  at 
once  that  he  had  done  so,  alleging  that  he  had  only  used 
violence  in  defense  of  his  own  person  and  life,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  deliver  himself  up  for  judicial  examination. 
When  this  examination  took  place  he  was  allowed  to  give 
bail  for  his  appearance  at  the  next  Circuit  Court  of  War 
ren  county;  where  an  indictment  for  murder  having  been 
found  against  him  he  demanded,  through  his  counsel,  a 
change  of  venue  to  the  county  of  Hinds  ;  and,  in  a  month 
or  two  after,  he  was  tried  in  presence  of  a  vast  assemblage 
of  citizens,  and  honorably  acquitted  of  the  charge  which 
had  been  brought  against  him.  I  must  necessarily  have 
been  familiar  with  all  the  facts  in  this  extraordinary  case, 
as  I  was  one  of  the  attorneys  engaged  in  Adams'  defense. 
I  was  aided  on  the  occasion  by  two  very  distinguished 
advocates — the  late  George  Yerger  and  the  late  John  I. 
Guion.  The  district  attorney  did  not  prosecute  alone, 
two  lawyers  of  some  standing  having  been  employed  to 
assist  him.  It  is  rather  a  curious  fact  that  one  of  these 
last-mentioned  attorneys,  whose  name  was  Brennan,  about 
a  year  afterward,  came  to  my  office  one  day  in  order  to 
obtain  my  professional  services  in  a  case  of  his  own  which 
had  just  arisen  for  judicial  cognizance.  lie  had  slain  an 
aged  negro  man  whom  he  had  in  his  employment,  and 
under  circumstances  of  the  most  aggravated  character. 
Much  local  excitement  had  been  engendered,  and,  from 
his  own  account  of  the  matter,  I  was  satisfied  that,  if 
tried,  nothing  could  save  him  from  the  scaffold  but  per- 


384  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

jury  in  the  jury  box.  I  at  once  told  Mr.  l>rennan  frankly 
that  his  case  was  beyond  remedy;  that  no  lawyer  could 
defend  him  successfully  without  resorting  to  expedients 
altogether  outside  of  my  own  professional  experience.  He 
readily  took  the  hint,  and  at  once  fled  from  that  part  of 
the  world  ;  since  which  time  I  have  never  heard  of  him.. 

Young  Adams,  in  a  few  months  after  the  termination 
of  his  trial,  commenced  a  most  brilliant  and  successful 
career  as  a  "lawyer  in  the  city  of  Jackson,  whence  he  after 
ward  removed  to  New  Orleans.  While  yet  in  Mississippi, 
though,  he  became  a  member  of  the  State  Senate,  and 
took  a  very  leading  part  in  connection  with  the  present 
distinguished  Governor  Alcorn  and  others  in  defeating 
the  scheme  of  secession,  then  in  active  progress.  I  low  it 
happened,  and  at  what  precise  period  it  was,  that  lie  was 
persuaded  to  take  part  in  the  late  civil  war  on  the  side 
of  the  Confederate  States  I  am  not  prepared  to  explain. 
Hut  F  can  confidently  avouch  that  a  braver,  mor »  honor 
able,  and  generous-hearted  gentleman  I  have  never  known, 
and  that  he  possessed  intellectual  gifts  which,  had  lie 
lived  long  enough,  under  circumstances  at  all  propitious, 
must  have  inevitably  secured  to  him  the  highest  honors 
of  his  profession.  After  receiving  many  and  grievous 
wounds  in  fiercely-contested  battles  during  the  late  war, 
at  its  termination  General  Adams  located  for  a  short 
period  in  the  city  of  New  York,  where  he  is  understood 
to  have  made  a  highly-favorable  impression.  He  subse 
quently  returned  to  his  old  domicil  in  the  city  of  New 
Orleans,  where  a  year  or  two  since  he  deceased  very  sud 
denly,  and,  as  I  have  been  told,  while  engaged  in  drafting 
some  important  judicial  paper. 

After  having  been  employed  in  the  defense  of  General 
Adams  I  had  the  honor  to  be  invited  to  deliver  a  funeral 
eulogy  upon  Dr.  Hagan,  and  I  agreed  to  do  so  should 
the  performance  of  this  duty  be  insisted  on,  but  took 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  885 

the  occasion  to  allege  that  my  position  as  counsel  in 
opposition  to  the  prosecution  then  pending  I  thought 
would  make  it  proper  that  the  task  proposed  should  he 
devolved  on  some  one  else.  I  do  not  know  what  after 
ward  occurred  in  this  matter. 

I  have  never  heard  of  a  newspaper  other  than  the  Sen 
tinel  which  stood  so  connected  with  tragic  occurrences  of 
one  kind  or  another.  After  the  decease  of  Dr.  Ilagan,  a 
Air.  Kian  hecarne  its  editor.  lie  was,  in  a  few  months, 
slain  in  a  duel  hy  Mr.  Ilammet,  of  the  Vickshurg  Whig. 
A  third  editor,  Captain  Hickey,  slew  Dr.  Maclin  in  a 
street-fight,  growing  out  of  some  newspaper  publication. 
Dr.  James  Fall,  while  superintending  the  management  of 
the  same  paper,  had  to  draw  trigger  twice  in  vindication, 
as  he  supposed,  of  his  right  of  free  thought  and  speech. 
Mr.  Jenkins,  who  was  the  editor  of  the  Sentinel  in  1848, 
and  whom  I  had  known  most  favorably  from  the  days  of 
his  early  boyhood,  fell  in  deadly  conflict  with  Mr.  Crabb, 
(also  known  to  me  for  many  years  and  highly  respected,) 
as  the  result  of  a  political  quarrel  which  had  occurred  the 
night  before  at  a  public  meeting,  where  I  chanced  to  be 
one  of  the  speakers.  A  Mr.  Roy  experienced  a  similar 
fate  while  engaged  in  an  exciting  editorial  career  in  the 
same  eitj,  and  not  long  after  his  paper  had  come  forth 
as  a  furious  advocate  of  the  reopening  of  the  African 
slave  trade! 

The  Mr.  Crabb  of  whom  I  have  spoken  was  the  only 
son  of  that  eminent  jurist,  Judge  Crabb,  of  Tennessee, 
who,  before  he  was  thirty  years  of  age,  had  become  recog 
nized  as  a  lawyer  of  most  remarkable  learning  and  ability, 
and  who,  although  he  died  in  his  thirty-fourth  year,  left 
behind  him  a  reputation  for  judicial  ability  and  upright 
ness  seldom  acquired  even  in  a  long  lifetime  of  unremit 
ting  study  and  labor.  Of  his  remarkable  son,  who,  by  a 
singular  coincidence,  died  also  in  his  thirty-fourth  year,  I 
25  R 


386  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

have  a  few  special  remarks  now  to  make.  After  the  un 
fortunate  conflict  with  Mr.  Jenkins,  already  mentioned, 
had  become  the  subject  of  judicial  examination,  and  he 
had  been  honorably  discharged,  lie  removed  to  the  State 
of  California.  There  I  found  him  on  my  arrival  in  that 
tar-oft'  region  in  the  year  1854,  a  prominent  member  of 
the  State  Senate.  His  reputation  for  political  ability  was 
very  high,  and  he  had  acquired  a  general  popularity  to 
which  few  men  besides  could  justly  lay  claim.  He  mar 
ried  an  amiable  and  accomplished  Mexican  lady,  who  had 
been  born  in  the  State  of  Sonora,  and  whose  father  and 
other  relatives  possessed  large  estates  there  of  which  they 
had  been  unjustly  and  cruelly  deprived  by  the  tyranny  of 
a  political  faction  bearing  rule  then  in  Sonora,  from 
whose  violence  they  had  been  forced  to  take  refuge  in 
California.  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  but  natural 
that  a  man  of  Colonel  Crabb's  bold  and  enterprising  tem 
per  should  seek  to  reinstate  his  friends  and  relatives  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  risrhts  of  which  they  had  been  so 
lawlessly  despoiled. 

In  point,  of  fact,  he  got  up  an  association  of  young  gen 
tlemen  in  California,  with  a  view  to  making  an  armed 
descent  upon  the  State  of  Sonora,  which  was  very  near 
being  completely  successful.  He  had  previously  visited 
that  region  and  effected  an  alliance  with  a  strong  body  of 
the  native  inhabitants  there,  which  would  have  been  able 
to  effect  a  complete  civil  revolution,  but  for  the  happen 
ing  of  one  or  two  events  presently  to  be  narrated.  Col 
onel  Crabb,  who  was  one  of  the  Fillmore  electors  in 
California,  in  the  year  1856,  lingered  so  long  in  this  in 
teresting  field  of  operations  that  his  allies  in  Sonora, 
despairing  of  his  coming,  became  reconciled  to  the  Mex 
ican  Government.  It  seems  that  in  order  to  secure  their 
own  impunity  they  had  to  promise  that  if  Colonel  Crabb 
and  his  California  associates  should  thereafter  reach  So- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  887 

nora  they  would  manage  to  betray  them  into  the  hands 
of  the  Government,  and  thus  aid  in  making  them  the 
subjects  of  exemplary  vengeance.  Of  this  state  of  things 
Colonel  Orabb  and  his  confiding  friends — most  of  whom 
1  knew  personally — had  no  intimation.  I  saw  the  Colo 
nel  only  a  few  days  before  he  left  California  for  the  thea 
ter  of  his  expected  operations.  He  was  in  fine  spirits,  full 
of  hope  as  to  the  future,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  almost 
exuberant  physical  health.  When  he  reached  the  fron 
tiers  of  Sonora  he  was  deluded  into  a  conference  with  his 
former  confederates  which  he  had  every  reason  to  sup 
pose  to  be  one  of  a  perfectly  amicable  character.  Tie  and 
his  whole  party  were,  in  a  few  minutes,  seized  upon  and 
mercilessly  put  to  death  !  Horresc-o  referens!  The  agoniz 
ing  news  soon  reached  California  not  only  that  this  once 
promising  expedition  had  signally  failed,  but  that  the 
head  of  the  lamented  Crabb  had  been  amputated  after 
death  and  placed  in  a  large  glass  vessel  filled  with  spirits 
of  wine,  with  the  intention  of  exhibiting  it  to  the  rep 
resentatives  of  the  Mexican  Government,  in  proof  that 
this  nefarious  scheme  of  treachery  had  been  consummated, 
and  that  his  diabolical  murderers  had  thus  faithfully  ex 
ecuted  their  hideous  compact  of  perfidy! 

It  can  not  but  be  viewed  as  a  somewhat  curious  and 
impressive  coincidence  that  the  celebrated  William 
Walker,  whose  extraordinary  career  awakened  so  much 
interest  at  one  time  in  every  part  of  the  civilized  world 
as  "  The  Grey-eyed  Man  of  Destiny,"  and  who  underwent 
so  dreadful  a  fate  afterward  in  Honduras,  was,  like  Crabb, 
a  native  of  the  "  City  of  Rocks,"  Nashville,  where,  by 
many  worthy  people,  both  of  these  famous  personages  are 
yet  held  in  high  esteem,  and  over  whose  sad  end  many 
sincere  tears  have  been  shed.  Walker  and  Crabb  were 
for  many  years  intimate  and  devoted  friends,  though'  in 
some  important  points  of  character  they  were  wholly 
unlike.  Peace  to  the  ashes  of  both  these  young  heroes  ! 


388  CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES. 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXV. 

DAVIS — BRAGG — NEPOTISM — IIINDMAN's    BRUTALITIES. 

I  feel  called  upon  to  recite  one  or  two  miscellaneous 
facts  not  heretofore  recorded.  These  particulars  would 
have  been  passed  by  but  for  certain  recent  indiscreet 
movements  of  Mr.  Davis,  which  have  been  already  alluded 
to. 

It.  is  not  only  surprising,  but  is  even  not  a  little  ridicu 
lous  that  this  personage  should  now  attempt  to  revive  the 
feelings  of  rancor  arising  from  the  late  war  in  the  manner 
which  has  been  heretofore  noticed,  when  it  is  a  well- 
known  and  undeniable  fact  that  the  Confederate  Congress 
was  compelled,  several  weeks  before  Mr.  Davis'  precipitate 
and  inglorious  flight  from  Richmond,  to  strip  him  of  all 
his  control  of  the  military  forces  then  warring  for  South 
ern  independence, and  to  deposit  the  exclusive  management 
of  its  armies  in  the  hands  of  that  able,  patriotic,  and  higlu 
souled  commander,  General  Robert  E.  Lee.  Mr.  Davis' 
silly  and  blustering  attempt  to  nullify,  by  his  usurping 
manifesto  from  Danville,  a  few  days  after  the  surrender 
of  General  Lee,  that  needed  and  judiciously-concluded  ar 
rangement,  though  quite  in  character,  was  perhaps  the 
most  disgusting  specimen  of  official  rhodomontade  to 
which  even  the  American  Don  Quixote  and  his  meek  and 
obedient  squire,  Sancho  Panza  Benjamin,  had  ever  given 
vent.  There  is  really  nothing  more  gravely  amusing  in 
any  of  the  scenes  of  adventure  which  marked  the  roman 
tic  career  of  the  "  Knight  of  the  Rueful  Countenance  "  than 
this^  same  Parthian  missive,  dispatched  by  the  ex-Presi 
dent  and  his  scampering  Secretary  of  State,  when  prepar 
ing  to  resume  that  ominous  flight  beyond  the  great 


CASKET    OP    REMINISCENCES.  339 

"  Father  of  Waters,"  especially  considering  the  fact  that 
by  the  fiat  of  a  once  over-observant  Congress  he  had  been 
fixed  in  a  state  of  most  disgraceful  political  "  Coventry," 
at  least  so  far  as  all  future  military  movements  were  con 
cerned.  Mr.  Davis  certainly  acted  far  more  in  conformity 
with  his  then  politically  emasculated  condition  when,  a  few 
days  thereafter,  he  so  adroitly  donned  the  traveling  gar 
ments  of  some  one  of  the  gentler  sex,  and  attempted  to 
make  his  escape  from  the  military  pursuers,  then  close 
upon  his  heels,  with  bonnet  on  head  and  huge  India-rubber 
wrapper  investing  his  slender  and  wire-drawn  membral 
appendages,  almost  reminding  one  of  FalstafFs  grotesque 
simulation  of  the  now  world-renowned  nurse  of  Brentford. 
This  puny  effort  at  the  Montgomery  White  Sulphur 
Springs  to  set  afloat  the  absurd  idea  that  General  Lee  and 
Joe  Johnston  were  "  cheated  "  into  a  dishonorable  sur 
render  by  the  two  over-cunning  Union  commanders  with 
whom  they  had  to  deal,  is  obviously  designed  not  only  to 
bring  discredit  upon  these  two  valiant  and  efficient  Con 
federate  officers,  but  to  suggest  the  idea  in  addition  that, 
had  he  not  been  so  injudiciously  deprived  of  his  executive 
chieftainship,  the  Confederate  States  would  long  since 
have  attained  the  objects  for  which  they  had  for  four  dis 
astrous  and  blood-marked  years  so  energetically  contended. 
In  this  point  of  view  Mr.  Davis'  maniacal  outpouring  at 
the  Montgomery  White  Sulphur  Springs  the  other  day 
may  be  well  regarded  as  a  sort  of  long-withheld  protest 
against  the  Congressional  act  which  stripped  him  of  his 
military  insignia  and  turned  him. out  plumeless  upon  the 
world,  somewhat  after  the  "manner  of  the  jackdaw  when 
deprived  of  the  peacock's  feathers  in  which  he  had  so  os 
tentatiously  arrayed  himself. 

There  are  many  things  which  were  done  and  said  by 
Mr.  Davis  in  Richmond  during  his  memorable  career 
there  which  have,  for  certain  reasons,  not  been  heretofore 


390  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ventilated,  but  of  which  his  present  efforts  to  disturb  the 
public  quiet  and  drag  the  South  into  a  renewed  experience 
of  evils  from  which  she  is  now  just  beginning  to  recover 
seems  to  me  to  demand  a  frank  and  full  exposure,  in  order 
•to  the  counteraction  of  his  yet  cherished  ambitious  de 
signs,  and  of  opening  even  the  eyes  of  all  those  of  the 
feminine  gender  in  the  South  who  chance, as  he  boasts,  to 

O 

remain  yet  "  unreconstructed."  Seven  years  ago,  in  a 
hastily-written  but  strictly  impartial  work  upon  the  events 
of  the  late  civil  war,  I  thusforbearingly  spoke  of  Mr.  Da 
vis,  and  of  others  particularly  connected  with  him,  while 
he  was  playing  the  part  of  self-constituted  Dictator  in 
Richmond : 

"  In  reference  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Confederate  Government, 
after  my  unhappy  and  tempestuous  connection  with  it  was  formed,  I 
should  have  very  much  to  say  under  different  circumstances  from  those 
which  now  exist,  all  of  which  may  he  said  hereafter  if  it  shall  heeome. 
apparent  that  the  puhlir  mind  has  attained  a  condition  in  which  it  will 
he  able  to  profit  by  the  painful  revelations  which  it  will  be  in  my  power 
to  make.  But  President  Davis  and  his  Cabinet  are  at  thi>  moment 
either  in  exile  or  in  imprisonment  ;  \\\<  multitudinous  official  servitors 
have  retired  to  private  life,  or  are  gloomy  wanderers  in  foreign  lands. 
Those  who,  in  despite  of  what  a  few  independent  and  high-spirited 
men  could  do  to  prevent  the  passage  of  certain  baleful  measures,  suc 
ceeded  in  enacting  laws  for  the  suspension  of  the  great  writ  of  liberty  ; 
for  the  confiscation  of  the  estates  of  all  who  could  not  conscientiously 
range  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  flag  of  their  fathers  ;  for  I  he  con 
scription  of  all  male  citizens  capable  of  bearing  arms,  whether  in 
friendly  or  hostile  relations  to  the  Confederate  cause ;  for  the  forcible 
impressment  of  private  property,  wheresoever  sit  uated,  at  the  discre 
tion  of  men  temporarily  endowed  with  military  authority;  for  the 
declaration  and  enforcement  of  martial  law  ;  and  a  number  of  acts  be 
sides  of  almost  equal  enormity  ;  those  who  sustained  Mr.  Davis  in  the 
appointment  of  inefficient  and  mischievous  officials,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  capable  and  the  virtuous  ;  who  sanctioned  the  impolitic aia!  ungen 
erous  displacement  of  able  and  high-soulcd  inilitarj'  commanders,  in 
order  to  make  way  for  others  whom  the  army  despised,  and  theciti/ens 
at  large  both  distrusted  and  hated — these  persons,  the  valueless 
ephemera  of  an  age  fertile  in  inanities  have  nearly  all  disappeared  from 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  391 

the  jostling,  chaotic  stage  whereupon  they  were  severally  enacting  their 
parts,  and 

u  w  Like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision, 

Left  not  a  wreck  behind.' 

u  As  to  Mr.  Davis,  I  must  say  that  1  regard  him  mainly  as  the  un 
fortunate  victim  of  dark  and  dangerous  political  heresies,  for  which  he 
is  by  no  means  primarily  responsible,  a  victim,  likewise,  of  the  intrigu 
ing  machinations  of  cunning  and  unscrupulous  managers,  whose  true 
character  he  was  not  capable  of  penetrating;  as  the  dupe  of  adulation 
and  false  promises  from  abroad  which  might  perchance  have  deceived 
men  far  more  sagacious  than  himself;  in  tine,  as  the  almost  involun 
tary  instrument  of  dark  and  potential  influences  generated  in  the  womb 
of  revolution,  which  led  him  to  claim  and  exercise;  powers,  the  employ 
ment  of  which,  though  utterly  subversive  of  freedom,  he  may  possibly 
have:  believed  to  be  indispensable  to  the  successful  execution  of  the 
grand  scheme  of  secession  and  C;esarism  to  which  he  had  for  so  many 
years  devoted  the  best  energies  of  his  soul  and  understanding.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  wish  evil  to  the  late  President  of  the  Confederate  States- 
lie  has  been  unfortunate,  and  I  condole  with  him  ;  he  has  committed 
great  and  grievous  errors,  and  I  make  all  just  allowance  for  them  ;  he 
is  unhappy,  and  L  sympathize  with  him  ;  he  is  in  prison,  and  L  pray 
night  and  day  for  his  enlargement.  Though  he  permitted  his  heartless 
Secretary  of  War  last  winter  to  deprive  me  of  my  own  personal  liberty 
and  to  retain  me  in  '  durance  vile '  until  1  was  discharged  on  habeas 
corpus,  alone  on  account  of  my  struggling  for  pacification  when  I  found 
both  Congress  and  himself  bent  on  the  further  prosecution  of  a  war 
which  they  had  themselves  already  rendered  hopeless  ;  yet,  so  far  from 
feeling  resentment  or  unkindness  on  this  account,  I  can  s»y  with  truth 
that,  having  myself  thrice  suffered  the  loss  of  personal  liberty  within 
the  last  twelve  months,  I  can,  in  reference  to  Mr.  Davis'  present  for 
lorn  and  suffering  condition,  painfully  and  sorrowingly  exclaim  (with 
a  slight  change  of  the  immortal  words  of  Virgil)  in  the  language  of 
Queen  Dido  to  /Eneas, 

1  Non  ignarus  mali.  miseris  succurrere   disco.'  '' 

I  should  have  been  glad  had  Mr.  Davis  left  those  who 
sincerely  condemned  his  conduct  in  Richmond  an  oppor 
tunity  of  being  silent  over  many  of  his  short-comings  and 
shameless  violations  of  principle.  But  as  he  has  chosen 
again  to  bring  himself  forward  as  a  fomenter  of  mischief, 
and  as  all  his  silly  and  slavish  adulators  seem  not  yet  to 
have  become  ashamed  of  their  former  close  affiliation 


392  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

with  him,  I  shall  now  drug  into  distinct  notice  several 
dishonoring  particulars  which  it  would  be  hut  a  foolish 
liberality  to  allow  longer  to  remain  in  concealment. 

Only  a  day  or  two  before  I  left  Richmond,  in  the  au 
tumn  of  1864,  Mr.  Fowle,  a  considerable  merchant  there, 
visited  me  for  the  purpose  of  calling  attention  to  a  matter 
which  he  conceived  to  be  of  the  greatest  importance,  He 
assured  me  that  for  some  months  past  it  had  been  the 
practice  of  the  Naval  Department  to  send  out  of  the  ports 
of  the  Confederate  States  large  orders  to  commercial  cities 
abroad  for  the  best  wines,  brandies,  silks,  and  other  things 
needful  for  the  supply  of  persons  of  luxurious  taste  ;  that 
these  commodities  were  purchased  with  the  money  of  the 
public  treasury,  along  with  supplies  for  the  Confederate 
soldiery,  and  that  whenever  a  fresh  supply  of  the  articles 
came  in  there  was  a  formal  assemblage  in  the  Naval  De 
partment  of  the  female  heads  of  certain  official  families, 
including  that  of  Mr.  Davis  himself,  among  whom,  and 
their  special  friends  and  favorites,  all  these  nice  things 
were  apportioned,  and  at  the  very  low  prices  which  had 
been  paid  for  them  abroad. 

Mr.  Fowle  assured  me  that  this  evil  practice  was  greatly 
injuring  the  merchants  of  Richmond,  and  besought  me 
to  bring  it  at  once  to  the  notice  of  the  Confederate  Con 
gress.  A  day  or  two  subsequent,  Colonel  Orr,  a  Congres 
sional  Representative  from  Mississippi,  (a  brother  of  the 
late  worthy  Minister  to  Russia,  and  a  gentleman  of  as 
much  honor  and  intelligence  as  was  then  in  Richmond,) 

o  »/ 

came  to  my  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  be 
sought  me  to  introduce  a  resolution  of  inquiry  on  this 
subject.  He  assured  me  that  he  had  himself  looked  care 
fully  into  the  matter,  and  had  found  the  facts  above 
stated  to  be  true  to  the  letter.  I  consented  to  introduce 
a  resolution  of  inquiry  in  regard  to  this  affair,  provided 
Colonel  Orr  would  put  his  statement  in  writing,  which  he 
did. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  393 

I  chanced  not  to  remain  long  enough  thereafter  in  Rich 
mond  to  prosecute  the  investigation  of  this  matter  to  a 
close,  but  I  have  never  doubted  that  the  information  given 
me  by  Mr.  Fowle  and  Colonel  Orr  was  in  all  respects  cor 
rect.  If  so,  what  are  men  to  think  of  Mr.  Davis'  boasted 
disinterestedness  and  integrity,  and  of  those  of  his  Cabinet 
counselors  ? 

About  twelve  months  before  the  fall  of  Richmond  Con 
gress  passed  a  bill  raising  each  of  the  adjutants  in  attend 
ance  upon  major  generals  in  service  to  the  dignity  of 
major.  The  subject  had  been  much  considered  and  most 
deliberately  acted  on.  So  soon  as  Congress  adjourned  Mr. 
Davis,  imitating  the  well-known  example  of  James  II  of 
England,  suspended  the  operation  of  the  law,  thus  com 
mitting  precisely  such  an  act  of  tyrannic  usurpation  as 
cost  the  King  of  England  referred  to  the  loss  of  his  throne. 
There  has  never  been  a  time  when  such  a  proceeding  as 
this  would  not  have  caused  the  immediate  impeachment 
of  a  President  of  the  United  States.  What  made  the 
conduct  of  Mr.  t)avis  in  regard  to  this  matter  still  more 

O 

disgusting  was  the  tact  that,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  a  son 
of  our  august  Confederate  Imperator,  not  above  fourteen 
years  of  age,  appeared  in  Mr.  Davis'  pew  at  church,  by 
the  paternal  side,  dressed  up  in  a  Confederate  major's  uni 
form,  without  his  ever  having  seen  a  single  day  or  hour 
of  military  service  in  his  life. 

Tbere  has  been  much  rather  silly  talk  at  one  time  in 
this  country  on  the  subject  of  nepotism.  I  assert  that  the 
grossest  and  most  shameless  acts  of  nepotism  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen  were  constantly  occurring  during  the  short 
and  stormy  reign  of  Jefferson  the  First  in  Richmond.  I  do 
not  think  that  there  was  a  single  male  relative,  either  of 
Mr.  Davis  or  his  wife,  to  be  found  in  any  part  of  the  Con 
federate  States,  that  was  not  given  official  advancement 
of  some  kind  or  other,  and  in  some  instances  under  cir- 


394  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

cu instances  of  the  grossest  indelicacy  and  injustice.  But 
this  theme  is  really  too  nauseating  to  be  dwelt  upon. 

It  was  formally  proposed  during  the  h'rst  year  of  the 
war  that  the  cotton  of  the  Confederate  States  in  private 
ownership  should  be  bought  by  the  Government.  Every 
bale  of  it  was  then  purchasable  at  ten  or  twelve  cents  per 
pound,  payable  in  Confederate  paper.  This  proposition 
was  scoffingly  rejected  by  Mr.  Davis  and  that  profound 
fiscal  economist,  Memminger,  his  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  on  the  ridiculous  and  untenable  ground  that  this  sort 
of  tram' c  would  transform  the  awful  government  at  Rich- 

O 

mond  into  a  wretched  broker's  office.  At  the  end  of  about 
two  years  these  gentlemen  came  to  their  senses  on  this 
all-important  subject,  and  commenced  buying  cotton  all 
over  the  land,  for  which  they  had  to  pay,  at  least,  a  dol 
lar  a  pound.  Thereby  hangs  a  tale  of  enormous  illicit 
profits,  which  the  public  is  not  likely  to  hear  told  very 
shortly. 

The  insane  project  of  burning  all  the  cotton  of  the 
South,  in  order  to  keep  it  out  of  the  hands  of  the  enemy, 
is  understood  to  have  originated  in  Mr.  Davis'  own  teem 
ing  cranium.  It  is  a  little  remarkable,  though,  that  while 
so  many  suffered  so  ruinously  by  the  destruction  of  their 
cotton  in  this  way,  the  crops  of  Mr.  Jetterson  Davis  and 
of  his  brother  Joseph  are  understood,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  to  have  escaped  the  devouring  flames. 

I  have  heretofore  brought  to  notice  the  fact  that  large 
proceeds  arising  from  the  sales  of  the  cotton  of  the  Con 
federate  Government  were  understood  to  be  in  the  city  of 
Liverpool  when  the  war  was  brought  to  an  end.  I  hope 
that  Mr.  Davis  and  the  historiographer,  whoever  he  may 
be,  that  had  the  honor  to  be  selected  the  other  day  to 
compose  the  first  truthful  and  impartial  history  of  the 
war  "from  Southern  material,"  will  condescend  to  give  to 
the  world  some  explanation  of  what  has  become  of  this 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  395 

large  amount  of  money,  and  also  what  became  of  the 
$200,000  in  gold  which  I  assert,  and  can  prove,  to  have 
been  taken  across  the  ocean  from  Canada  after  the  end  of 
the  war  by  Jacob  Thompson,  Mr.  Davis'  once-accredited 
agent.  Did  Mr.  Thompson  keep  the  whole  of  this  money, 
or  did  the  yet  u  unreconstructed  "  ex-Emperor  of  the  South 
get  his  share?  And  is  it  in  this  way  that  we  are  to  ac 
count  for  the  mysterious  suspension  of  that  generous  pro 
ject  set  on  foot  in  the  city  of  Richmond  a  few  years  ago 
for  raising  a  large  sum  of  money  from  the  distressed  and 
ruined  people  of  the  South  for  the  purpose  of  rewarding 
Mr.  Davis  for  his  Washington-like  services  to  a  generous- 
minded  but,  I  fear,  a  too  easily  deluded  people  ? 

Perhaps  the  most  cruel  and  atrocious  conduct  perpe 
trated  by  any  of  President  Davis'  military  servitors  during 
the  war  was  that  practiced  by  his  especial  favorite,  General 
Hind  man,  in  the  State  of  Arkansas.  I  have  formerly  as 
serted,  and  my  assertion  has  never  yet  been  denied,  nor  can 
it  be,  that  "this  person,  as  his  own  formal  report  to  the  War 
Department  evidenced,  finding,  as  he  said,  that  the  very 
comprehensive  provisions  of  the  conscription  law  were 
not  <{uite  comprehensive  enough  to  suit  his  purposes,  de 
liberately  amplified  them  by  proclamation  ;  declared  mar 
tial  law  throughout  Arkansas  and  the  northern  portion 
of  Texas,  and  demanded  the  services  of  all  whom  he  had 
thus  lawlessly  embraced  in  his  wide-sweeping  conscription 
list.  All  who  refused  to  obey  his  mandate,  as  he  in 
terms  confesses,  were  apprehended,  subjected  to  trial  by 
a  military  court,  appointed  by  Hindman  himself;  and 
when  convicted,  as  a  good  many  of  them  were,  of  an 
offense  which  he  himself  unblushiiigly  acknowledges  in 
this  same  official  report  was  wholly  unknown  to  the  law 
of  the  land,  he  had  them  all  executed  ;  and  going  even 
beyond  the  example  of  the  infernal  Jeffreys  himself  in 
barbarity,  he  (as  he  also  most  ostentatiously  declares,  in 


396  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  same  report)  took  cure  to  be  personally  present,  that 
he  might  witness  the  dying  agonies  of  his  unfortunate 
victims.  This  man  seized  upon  all  the  cotton  and  other 
property  for  which  lie  had  use,  (as  he  holdly  avows,)  burned 
some,  retained  some,  and  appropriated  a  third  portion  to 
such  purposes  as  he  pleased.  His  cruelties  were  so  enor 
mous  in  Arkansas  that  it  became  unsafe  that  he  should 
remain  there  longer,  when  he  was  brought  across  the 
Mississippi  river  under  order  of  the  Confederate  War  De 
partment,  made  president  of  a  court  of  inquiry  for  the 
trial  of  General  Lovell,  and,  after  having  made  such  a 
report  as  was  deemed  to  be  necessary  to  the  shielding  of 
certain  officials  in  Richmond  from  blame  in  connection 
with  the  capture  of  .New  Orleans,  was  immediately  there 
after  put  in  command  of  one  of  the  largest  divisions  in 
the  army  of  Tennessee,  where  he  remained  snug  and  com 
fortable  until,  running  into  collision  with  a  more  poten 
tial  presidential  favorite,  the  well-beloved  Bragg,  he  was 
quietly  relieved  from  command.  I  exposed  all  the  enor 
mity  of  this  fiend  in  human  form  in  open  session  of  the 
Confederate  Congress  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and  took 
pains  to  have  my  exposition  put  in  print,  and  yet  I  could 
not  persuade  Mr.  Davis  or  Mr.  Seddon  to  take  the  slightest 
notice  of  these  outrageous  enormities. 

O 

This  is  the  proper  place  to  give  some  special  attention 
to  this  same  General  Bragg.  This  military  commander 
first  set  the  example  of  proclaiming  martial  law,  which 
he  did  repeatedly  and  upon  the  most  flimsy  pretexts.  I 
assert  what  [  know  to  be  true,  and  what  I  charged  to  be 
true  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and  what  I  stand  now 
fully  prepared  to  establish  on  proof,  that  General  Bragg 
did  deliberately  put  to  death  on  repeated  occasions,  with 
out  a  shadow  even  of  Confederate  legal  authority,  as  meri 
torious  soldiers  as  he  had  under  his  command,  and  for  one 
of  the  most  revolting  instances  of  this  kind  which  oc- 


CASKET   01?  REMINISCENCES.  397 

curred  I  can  confidently  rely  upon  the  authority  of  Gen 
eral  Buckner,  from  whose  own  lips  I  learned  the  particu 
lars,  lie  evinced  on  all  occasions  while  he  commanded  the 
army  of  Tennessee  an  utter  disregard  of  all  the  established 
principles  of  constitutional  freedom,  committed  such  ex 
cesses  as  a  Sylla  or  a  Marius  would  almost  have  recoiled 
from,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  that  could  he  done,  his  re 
moval  from  command  could  not  be  effected  until  the  Con 
federate  cause  had  become  well-nigh  hopeless.  On  one  oc 
casion,  in  company  with  a  majority  of  the  Tennessee  Sen 
ators  and  Representatives,  I  joined  in  demanding  the  re 
moval  of  General  Bragg,  and  the  substitution  in  his  place 
of  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston.  A  written  communication 
had  been  addressed  to  the  Confederate  President  request 
ing  an  interview  with  him,  and  asking  that  it  might  be  a 
private  one.  Mr.  Davis  had  consented  to  see  us  at  a  par 
ticular  hour  at  his  office.  We  were  received  with  suffi 
cient  politeness,  but  we  presently  perceived  that  Mr.  Hun 
ter,  of  Virginia,  and  Mr.  Barnwell,  of  South  Carolina, 
were  also  present.  I  addressed  these  gentlemen  civilly, 
and  suggested  to  them  that  as  they  seemed  to  have  pre 
cedence  over  us  we  would  withdraw  until  their  particular 
business  should  be  dispatched.  To  this  they  answered : 
"No,  it  is  unnecessary,"  and  took  their  seats,  between  a 
large  table  and  the  wall,  near  enough  to  hear  all  that 
might  go  on.  Our  interview  was  a  very  brief  one.  Mr. 
Davis  gave  us  to  understand  that  the  change  which  we 
demanded  should  be  made,  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to 
present  to  our  view  a  book  purporting  to  contain  a  copy 
of  the  telegrams  he  had  sent  off  that  day,  from  which  it 
appeared  that  he  had  already  issued  the  order  for  which 
we  asked.  This,  by-the-by,  was  not  done ;  and  from  sub 
sequent  facts  I  am  satisfied  that  he  had  never  entertained 
the  least  thought  of  parting  with  Bragg  at  all.  I  recol 
lect  that  Major  Gustavus  Henry,  one  of  the  Tennessee 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 


Senators,  inquired  of  me,  as  we  left  the  room,  if  I  thought 
Mr.  Hunter  and  Mr.  Barnwell  had  been  requested  bv  Mr. 
Davis  to  remain  in  order  to  bear  witness  thereafter  to 
what  might  occur.  To  this  I  answered  that  I  could  not 
undertake  to  decide  so  nice  a  point  as  this,  hut  T  con 
sidered  that  we  had  all  been  treated  most  disrespectfully, 
and  that  it  was  the  last  official  visit  I^should  ever  pay  to 
Mr.  Davis.  This  surely  needs  no  comment. 

And  now,  with  such  facts  as  these  staring  us  in  the 
face,  will  any  portion  of  our  Southern  people  desire  the 
restoration  of  Mr.  Davis'  tyrannic  rule?  Does  anv  one 
wisli  to  see  renewed  in  any  part  of  the  land  the  reign  of 
secession?  Is  it  indeed  true  that  any  portion  of  the  fail- 
ladies  of  the  South  yet  sympathize  with  this  unscrupulous 
and  daring  adventurer?  Do  not  all  my  Ion  ^-suffer  ing 
countrymen  and  countrywomen  of  the  South  at  last  see 
the  necessity  of  their  becoming  at  once  cordially  recon 
ciled  to  the  Government  of  their  fathers  ?  Will  they  not 
afford  to  that  paternal  Government  a  fair  opportunity  of 
exercising  that  magnanimity  which  belongs  to  its  charac 
ter?  Or  will  they  still  maniacally  cling  to  the  accursed 
"  flesh-pots  of  Egypt  ?" 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  399 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXVI. 

UNIVERSAL  SUFFRAGE  AND  UNIVERSAL  AMNESTY — HON.  WIL 
LIAM  M.  STEWART— ANDREW  JOHNSON — GOVERNOR  SHARKEY 
—ALEXANDER  II.  STEPHENS. 

When  the  recent  four  years'  civil  war  was  brought  to 
a  close  one  fact  was  exceedingly  obvious  to  all  mankind- 
African  slavery  in  North  America  was  dead,  dead,  dead, 
beyond  all  possibility  of  being  resuscitated  in  all  time  to 
come!  This  overthrow  of  a  system  of  unmixed  evil  had 
been  long  before  and  often  thundered  into  the  ears  of  dull- 
sighted  and  bigoted  secession  leaders  by  such  men  as  Clay 
and  Webster  as  the  certain  and  inevitable  result  of  the 
surrender  of  those  constitutional  guarantees  which  had 
alone  and  almost  for  a  century  protected  slavery  against 
the  indignant  hostility  of  an  uprisen  world.  So  far,  in 
deed,  were  such  one-idea  men  as  John  C.  Calhoun,  Jeff 
Davis,  et  id  omne  genus,  from  comprehending  this,  that 
they  verily  believed,  and  often  ostentatiously  announced 
in  Congress  and  elsewhere,  that  the  system  of  labor  then 
existing  in  the  South  would  never  find  itself  established 
upon  solid  and  irremovable  foundations  until  a  constitu 
tion  for  a  separate  Southern  republic  should  be  formed  in 
which  slavery  would  be  made  the  chief  and  predominat 
ing  ingredient.  This  constitution,  as  I  have  more  than 
once  mentioned,  Mr.  Calhoun  professed  to  have  already 
drawn  up,  and  was  ready  to  supervise  its  being  put  in 
happy  and  beneficent  operation.  I?ut  so  far,  in  truth,  was 
slavery  from  being  strengthened  and  solidified  by  the  war, 
projected  and  carried  on  in  the  begining  for  its  extension 
and  perpetuation,  that  even  Mr.  Davis  was  driven,  during 


400  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

the  last  year  of  that  war,  to  recommend  throwing  all  the 
able-bodied  sons  of  Africa  into  the  Confederate  armies  for 
the  maintenance  of  those  chains  which  four  millions  of 
men,  women,  and  children  were  then  wearing — on  condi 
tion,  though,  that  the  happy  few  who  were  to  he  suddenly 
transformed  into  soldiers  should  be  allowed  to  win  their 
own  emancipation  by  fighting  for  the  permanent  subju 
gation  of  all  who  should  not  take  up  arms.  These  notions 
seem  all  now  to  be  so  surpassingly  stupid  and  impracti 
cable  that  even  those  of  us  who  had  ocular  and  auricular 
evidence  of  the  facts  just  stated  must  almost  feel  incredu 
lous  of  what  we  distinctly  recollect  to  be  true. 

When  slavery  was  at  last  seen  by  all  to  be  "in  the  tomb 
of  the  Capulets,''  it  became  necessary  to  determine  with 
out  delay  what  should  become  of  those  who  had  been  just 
redeemed  fro.n  bondage.  A  far-sighted  sagacity  would 
long  before  have  provided  for  this  state  of  things  by  a 
system  of  gradual  emancipation,  accompanied  by  a  suitable 
and  well-digested  system  of  general  education.  To  have 
among  us  four  millions  of  people  nominally  free,  but  in 
all  the  higher  advantages  of  a  state  of  freedom  on  an  equal 
ity  with  the  members  of  the  brute  creation,  was  mani 
festly  to  ordain  the  ultimate  degradation  and  ruin  of  our 
whole  forty  millions  of  citizens.  The  moral  and  intel 
lectual  culture  of  the  race  so  long  held  in  subjection  had 
become  a  great  national  necessity,  perhaps  even  more  im 
portant  to  the  white  race  themselves  than  to  those  among 
whom  the  seeds  of  knowledge  and  refinement  had  no>v  to 
be  sown.  If  we  desired  to  have  social  tranquillity,  peace 
able  and  friendly  neighbors  and  fellow-Christians,  instead 
of  living  in  a  state  ot^  perpetual  proximity  to  ignorance 
and  barbarism,  to  want  and  degraded  profligacy — always 
on  the  increase — we  had  to  provide  for  the  emancipation 
of  our  former  bondmen  and  bondwomen  from  a  condition 
of  mental  and  spiritual  slavery  far  more  torturing  than 


CASKEt   OF   REMINISCENCED.  401 

mere  physical  enthrallment.  "We  had  to  do  more.  The 
necessity  had  come  upon  us  of  the  South,  springing  from 
the  eternal  principles  of  justice,  as  well  as  a  sound,  states 
manlike  policy,  of  doing  all  this  ourselves  for  the  safety 
and  future  advancement  of  a  long-oppressed  and  suffering 
race,  in  order  to  conciliate  them  toward  their  former  mas 
ters  and  mistresses,  and  keep  these  helpless  ones  out  of 
the  hands  of  a  hody  of  selfish  and  contriving  managers 
with  whom  they  were  even  then  in  daily  and  hourly  con 
tact,  and  who,  if  allowed  to  do  so,  would  infallibly  use 
them  for  their  own  selfish  purposes,  and  set  them  perma 
nently  against  those  to  whose  control  they  had  so  long, 
under  far  different  circumstances,  quietly  and  unmurmur- 
ingly  submitted.  Carpet-bagism  then  was  not  an  actual 
entity,  but  men  of  clear  insight  distinctly  saw  that  there 
was,  even  at  that  time,  a  possibility  of  its  future  exist 
ence  with  all  theunnamable  horrors  that  wait  thereupon. 
The  grave  question  was  now  immediately  to  arise  :  Are 
Southern  men  sufficiently  relieved  from  the  prejudices  be 
longing  to  a  system  which  has  now  forever  passed  away 
calmly  and  impartially  to  consider  these  matters,  and  cor 
dially  and  without  reserve  to  accept  all  the  legitimate 
results  of  the  war?  There  was  one  great  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  their  coming  to  sound  conclusions  concerning  this 
momentous  matter.  It  is  time  that  the  truth  should  be 
spoken  boldly.  There  was  an  ancient  party  organization 
in  the  States  of  the  .North  yet  exhibiting  some  feeble 
signs  *of  vitality,  which  Mr.  Jefferson  and  others  had 
always  claimed  to  be  the  "natural  ally  of  the  South,"  and 
which  in  former  days  had  rendered  good  service  as  the 
upholder  of  what  were  called  Democratic  principles,  and 
as  the  supporter  of  that  healthful  spirit  of  progress  then 
associated  with  the  Democratic  name  and  what  yet  re 
mained  of  its  primeval  creed.  Many  of  the  leaders  of  this 
party  in  the  North,  it  was  known,  had  deeply  sympa- 
26  K 


402  CASKET  OF   REMINISCENCES. 

thized  with  the  South  in  the  struggle  for  independence 
which  had  just  terminated.  Some  had  even  generously 
rushed  to  the  sunny  plains  of  the  South,  and  fought  there 
against  the  Union  soldiers.  This  party  had  generally 
manifested  its  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation 
decreeing  universal  freedom.  Though  deeply  discredited 
and  demoralized,  that  party,  then  plainly  degenerated 
into  a  mere  spoils-loving  faction,  was  yet  unwilling  to 
die.  The  newspapers  of  that  party  everywhere  were  un 
willing  to  give  up  an  organization  which  had  in  times 
past  proved  so  profitable  to  them,  and  which,  could  it  be 
thoroughly  redintegrated,  would,  as  they  hoped,  be  yet 
equally  prolific  of  the  advantages  of  every  kind  which 
had  been  formerly  enjoyed.  Local  demagogues,  too,  every 
where,  depending  alone  upon  party  organization  and  a 
vicious  system  of  party  nomination  for  prospective  power 
and  dignity,  still  held  on  with  tenacious  grip  to  the  rotten 
and  shattered  hull  of  the  besmirched  and  shivered  craft 
in  which  they  had  so  long  been  navigating.  With  what 
face  could  such  Democrats  as  I  have  been  describing  ask 
for  admission  into  the  Republican  party  of  that  time  and 
become  the  open  supporters  of  the  principles  of  progress  to 
which  the  war  and  its  successful  administration  had  o;iven 


rise  : 

Such  was  the  precise  state  of  things  when  that  \vise  and 
pure-minded  patriot,  Horace  Greeley,  startled  the  whole 
country  by  the  enunciation  of  the  sublime  and  all-compre 
hending  proposition — universal  suffrage,  coupled  with  uni 
versal  amnesty.  Light  seemed  suddenly  to  break  in  upon 
the  public  mind,  and  to  scatter  in  an  instant  the  clouds 
of  passion  and  prejudice  which  had  so  long  enveloped  it. 
Here  was  the  restoration  of  that  civic  equality  existing 
in  the  days  of  our  fathers  tendered  to  all  the  unhappy 
victims  of  the  war;  and  that  civic  equality  also  which 
had  been  solemnly  pledged  in  the  season  of  war  by  the 


CASKET   OF  ftEMlKlSCEtfCES.  403 

Government  itself  to  those  from  whose  hands  the  shackles 
of  serfdom  had  just  been  broken.  The  equity  of  this  du 
plex  proposition  was  just  as  obvious  as  was  its  expediency. 
But  these  words  of  wisdom  and  of  true  philanthropy 
spoken  by  the  lamented  Greeley  had  come  first  from  the 
lips  of  a  Republican  leader.  Other  Republican  leaders — 
Gerrit  Smith  ;  the  then  Governor  of  Massachusetts  ;  and 
others  who  might  be  mentioned — had  cordially  welcomed 
Mr.  Greeley 's  soul-cheering  enunciation,  and  nothing 
could  be  plainer  than  that  if  universal  amnesty  and  uni 
versal  suffrage  should,  under  such  circumstances,  be  ac 
corded  by  the  North  and  accepted  by  the  South,  and  thus 
the  great  work  of  national  pacification  be  seen  to  go  on 
under  .Republican  auspices,  there  was  an  end  forever  of 
Democratic  dignity  and  of  Democratic  influence,  and  a 
"  new  era  of  good  feeling "  and  of  general  amity  and 
brotherhood  would  be  ushered  in,  to  last  for  a  few  years 
at  least;  during  which  party  strife  and  rancor  would 
cease  to  inflame  and  irritate  the  whole  popular  mind  of 
America. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1866  that  I  chanced  to  visit 
Washington  city.  Congress  was  in  session,  and  the  topics 
adverted  to  above  were  undergoing  everywhere  a  free  and 
animated  discussion.  One  morning,  on  calling  at  the  room 
of  Mr.  Stewart,  one  of  the  Senators  from  Nevada,  he  and 
I  fell  into  conversation  on  this  subject.  I  had  several 
months  before  published  a  letter  in  the  New  York  Tribune 
urging  warmly  upon  the  people  of  the  South  their  prompt 
and  cordial  accession  to  Mr.  Greeley's  proposition.  Sev 
eral  newspapers  in  that  region  of  a  decidedly  conservative 
cast  had  republished  rny  letter  and  given  to  it  their  ap 
proval.  The  Bourbon-Democratic  presses  of  the  South 
were  as  yet  holding  back,  waiting  for  advice  from  the 
accredited  organs  of  the  Democratic  party  in  New  York 
and  elsewhere  before  they  ventured  to  say  pro  or  con  in 


404  CASKET   OF  kKMlNlSCENCES. 

regard  to  a  measure  which  they  feared  might  disrupt  the 
organization  of  that  party  which  was  so  much  dearer  to 
them  than  their  bleeding  and  distressed  country. 

Mr.  Stewart  asked  me  if  I  thought  the  States  and  peo 
ple  of  the  South  would  willingly  accept  the  conditions  of 
settlement  tendered  by  Mr.  Greeley.  I  answered  that  I 
was  satisfied  they  ought  to  do  so  ;  that  universal  amnesty, 
coupled  with  universal  suffrage,  was  all  they  were  entitled 
to  demand,  and  more  than  I  had  hoped  for  a  month  or 
two  before.  But  I  promptly  expressed  rny  opinion  that- 
party  thraldom  in  the  South  was  then  so  complete,  and 
there  was  so  much  deference  paid  thereto  narrow-minded 
and  ignorant  partisan  scribblers,  and  to  the  commands  of 
selfish  and  unscrupulous  party-managers,  that  unless  the 
Democratic  press  in  the  North  could  be  in  some  way  lib 
eralized  and  rendered  more  national  and  patriotic  in  its 
tone,  it  was  to  be  feared  that  for  the  present,  at  least,  my 
unhappy  fellow-countrymen  of  the  South  would  regard 
negro  suffrage  as  a  thing  to  which  they  ought  never  to 
think  of  submitting.  I  suggested,  further,  that  there 
might  be  some  difficulty  on  this  point  yet  in  the  mind  of 
President  Johnson,  who  was  evidently  bent  on  carrying 
into  operation,  and  by  any  means  which  he  might  find 
necessary  to  that  end,  his  own  peculiar  policy  of  recon 
struction,  and  I  reminded  Mr.  Stewart  also  of  the  remark 
able  conversation  which  had  occurred  some  time  before 
between  President  Johnson  and  Frederick  Douglass,  in 
which  the  former  had  very  scornfully  declared  that  what 
he  had  always  meant  by  making  the  slave  free  was  the 
nuiking  him  free  to  labor — urging  at  the  same  time  that, 
should  civil  equality  be  given  to  the  blacks,  it  would,  as 
he  believed,  initiate  a  war  of  races — a  shallow  and  unau 
thorized  notion,  altogether  repugnant  to  the  teachings  of 
history.  Mr.  Stewart  said  that  he  had  some  hope  that, 
if  proper  efforts  were  made,  President  Johnson  could  be 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  405 

induced  to  co-operate  cordially  in  the  new  movement, 
and  told  me  that  if  I  would  remain  in  Washington  one 
day  more  he  would  introduce  a  resolution  on  this  subject 
in  the  Senate.  He  further  told  me  he  had  reason  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Sunnier  would  unite  with  him  in  support 
of  such  a  resolution  as  that  above  alluded  to,  and  that  a 
telegram  had  been  just  received  from  the  Governor  of 
Massachusetts  which  committed  that  worthy  and  influ 
ential  personage  most  fully  in  regard  to  this  grave  and 
interesting  matter. 

All  this  was  highly  encouraging  to  me,  and  I  told  Mr. 
Stewart  that  if  he  would  draw  up  and  offer  his  resolution 
that  very  day,  I  would  see  certain  Senators,  recently 
elected  in  the  South,  who  were  at  that  moment  in  Wash 
ington  with  a  hope  of  being  admitted  in  a  day  or  two 
to  their  seats,  but  who  thus  far  had  not  been  permitted 
to  qualify ;  naming  of  these  gentlemen,  particularly, 
Messrs.  Stephens,  Graham,  and  Sharkey ;  all  of  whom  I 
told  Mr.  Stewart  I  thought  would  be  willing  to  join  in  an 
assurance  that  his  resolution,  if  adopted  in  Congress, 
would  prove  ultimately  satisfactory  to  the  people  of  their 
respective  States.  Mr.  Stewart  sat  down  to  draft  his  res 
olution,  and  I  went  at  once  to  call  on  Mr.  Stephens  and 
Judge  Sharkey,  both  of  whom  I  saw  ;  and  I  regretted  to 
find  that  Governor  Graham,  of  North  Carolina,  had  left 
town.  J  udge  Sharkey  told  me  at  once  that  he  warmly 
approved  of  what  I  was  doing,  and  that  if,  on  calling  to 
see  President  Johnson  and  conversing  with  him,  he  should 
find  things  propitious  in  that  quarter,  he  would  at  once 
declare,  in  a  public  and  formal  manner,  his  sanction  of 
Mr.  Stewart's  resolution,  and  give  it  his  hearty  support, 
also,  after  his  return  to  Mississippi.  Judge  Sharkey  went 
at  once  to  the  White  House,  had  an  interview  with 
President  Johnson,  and  returned  to  the  hotel,  where  I 
was  impatiently  awaiting  his  arrival.  He  told  me  that 


406  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

he  deeply  regretted  to  find  Mr.  Johnson  utterly  opposed 
to  endowing  the  negro  with  the  right  of  suffrage,  he  in 
sisting  that  it  would  inevitably  result  in  a  war  of  races, 
and  added  that  he  felt  bound  to  adhere  to  Mr.  Johnson, 
even  in  opposition  to  his  own  convictions,  inasmuch  as  he 
had,  as  he  thought,  greatly  risked  himself  for  the  relief  of 
the  South  in  her  present  suffering  condition.  I  was  exceed 
ingly  distressed  to  learn  these  facts,  and  I  saw  very  plainly 
that  there  was  not  much  probability  of  Mr.  Stewart's 
pacificatory  resolution  being  adopted  while  President 
Johnson  continued  to  occupy  his  present  attitude.  Judge 
Shark ey  several  years  after  visited  my  own  residence  in 
Nashville,  and  took  occasion  to  condemn  President  John 
son  very  strongly  on  account  of  the  absurd  and  unaccom 
modating  spirit  displayed  by  him  on  that  occasion,  which 
he  then  agreed  with  me  had  been  deeply  prejudicial  to 
the  South  and  to  the  whole  country. 

My  interview  with  Mr.  Stephens  was  a  very  extraordi 
nary  one  indeed.  I  placed  before  him  the  substance  of 
the  resolution  which  Mr.  Stewart  was  about  to  offer.  He 
told  me  frankly  that  he  did  not  approve  it ;  that  he  could 
never  give  his  assent  to  negro  suffrage ;  and  he  even  called 
in  question  the  validity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  of 
freedom.  I  urged  upon  him  the  proposition  that  the 
measure  of  emancipation  had  been  adopted  as  a  war  meas 
ure,  and  in  that  point  of  view  I  thought  should  be  held 
valid.  This  he  very  politely  but  very  vehemently  denied, 
and  I  soon  after  left  his  lodgings  fully- persuaded  that 
neither  he  nor  his  brother  Senators  from  the  South  who 
had  been  knocking  for  admission  at  the  doors  of  the 
Senate  would  ever  be  admitted  until  Congress  should 
have  guaranteed,  in  some  effectual  mode,  the  future  safety 
and  happiness  of  those  whom  they  had  so  solemnly  and 
repeatedly  encouraged  to  look  to  them  for  protection 
support. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  407 

i  The  conduct  of  President  Johnson  in  this  instance  was 
the  more  remarkable  because  he  had  a  year  before  sent  a 
telegram  to  Judge  Sharkey,  when  this  gentleman  was 
acting  in.  the  capacity  of  Provisional  Governor  of  Missis 
sippi,  in  which  he  recommended,  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner,  that  the  organic  convention  of  that  State  should, 
in  the  new  constitution  which  that  body  was  about  to 
frame,  insert  a  clause  providing  for  universal  amnesty 
and  universal  suffrage,  basing  the  latter,  though,  upon 
the  standard  of  intelligence.  "  In  this  waj^"  said  this 
notable  telegram,  "  you  will  take  the  wind  out  of  the 
sails  of  your  adversaries." 

Mr.  Stewart  brought  forward  his  .  resolution  in  the 
Senate,  as  he  had  agreed  to  do,  and  had  the  satisfaction, 
in  a  day  or  two,  of  li  tiding  himself  most  unkindly  attacked 
by  the  editors  of  the  New  York  World,  who  denounced 
the  proposition  offered  by  him  as  unjust  and  illiberal  to 
ward  the  South,  and  characterized  Mr.  Stewart  himself 
as  a  bitter  Radical  on  account  of  his  having  thus  presumed 
to  brino;  it  forward. 

c5 

Both  the  great  political  parties  lately  contending  for 
ascendency  in  the  Presidential  election  placed  themselves 
upon  the  platform  of  universal  amnesty  and  universal 
suffrage  ;  the  whole  South  acquiesced  therein,  and  no  one 
now  deems  it  safe  or  politic  to  deny  the  civil  equality 
of  the  races.  And  yet  still  is  there  some  secret  dissatis 
faction  fermenting  in  a  few  bosoms  in  regard  to  this  once 
painfully  disputed  point ;  and  it  is  evident,  from  the 
movements  of  certain  political  Bourbonites  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  (so  called)  in  several  of  the  populous  States 
of  the  West,  that  if  a  particular  class  of  antediluvian 
politicians,  who  are  neither  capable  of  learning  anything 
new  nor  of  forgetting  anything  old,  are  allowed  to  have 
their  own  way  about  this  matter,  they  will  yet  throw  us 
back  at  least  six  years  in  the  history  of  the  past ;  and 


408  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

the  men  of  progress  will  have  to  fight  over  again  once 
more  the  great  battle  of  principle  which  has  so  often  already 
been  fought  and  won. 

How  long  will  it  be  before  our  countrymen  will  every 
where  learn  that  party  does  not  mean  country,  and  that  a 
man  may  be  a  most  spry  and  dextrous  party  leader  with 
out  the  smallest  claim  to  be  recognized  as  an  enlightened 
and  incorruptible  patriot  ?  How  long  shall  men  of  sound 
sense  and  extended  experience  in  the  States  of  the  South 
continue  to  look  with  something  of  an  idolatrous  rever 
ence  to  the  teachings  of  distant  editors,  who  are  directly 
interested  in  deceiving  them,  and  whose  innumerable 
blunders  and  inconsistencies  have  long  since  deprived  them 
of  all  just  claim  to  respect  and  consideration  ?  How  long 
will  it  continue  to  be  the  case  that  men  of  ability,  of  up 
rightness,  and  of  known  patriotism  shall  be  distrusted 
and  hated  because  of  the  falsehood  and  deceptions  plausi 
bility  of  those  who  smile  but  to  betray,  and  who  make 
professions  of  undying  friendship  only  the  more  effec 
tually  to  delude  and  injure  those  who  are  silly  enough  to 
seek  their  counsels  and  to  give  heed  to  their  deceitful 
admonitions  ? 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  409 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXVII. 

s 

CHIEF    JUSTICE    CHASE — JUSTICE   SWAYNE. 

A  few  days  since,  after  having  taken  dinner  at  the 
house  of  a  hospitable  and  valued  friend,  who  d\\  ells  amid 
the  cool  and  shady  heights  of  Georgetown,  I  was  easily 
persuaded  to  stroll  during  the  cool  and  quiet  hours  of  a 
Saturday  afternoon  through  the  grounds  of  the  beauti 
ful  cemetery  in  that  vicinage,  where  wealth  and  a  deli 
cate  and  refined  taste  have  done  so  much  to  soften  the  in 
evitable  horrors  of  death,  and  to  impart  needed  consola 
tion  to  the  hearts  of  bereaved  friends  and  relatives.  I 
soon  found  myself  standing  in  view  of  the  freshly-made 
grave  of  one  whom  I  had  long  and  familiarly  known  in 
life,  and  between  whom  and  myself  the  most  unvarying 
harmony  and  friendship  had  ever  subsisted,  despite  certain 
differences  of  opinion  betwixt  us  upon  questions  once 
deemed  of  essential  and  vital  import.  While  I  was  thus 
surveying  the  last  resting-place  of  a  man  whose  career 
had  been  so  eminently  marked  with  ability  and  virtue, 
and  saw  the  flowers  with  which  the  hand  of  affection  had 
so  profusely  bestrewn  the  earth  which  covered  the  mortal 
remains  of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  now  fast  withering  under 
the  influence  of  a  warm  summer's  sun,  I  could  not  but 
feel  touchingly  impressed  with  the  vain  and  transitory 
character  of  all  sublunary  grandeur,  and  I  inwardly  re 
peated  the  memorable  words  of  Mr.  Burke:  "  What  shad 
ows  we  are,  and  what  shadows  we  pursue !  " 

It  will  appear,  I  am  sure,  surprising  to  none  that,  after 
leaving  this  sequestered  and  suggestive  scene  arid  return 
ing  to  my  own  lonely  lodgings,  my  mind  fell  into  a  train 


410  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

of  rumination,  and  became  conscious  of  reminiscences 
which  sought  expression  in  such  language  as  that  which 
follows;  in  which  will  be  found  allusions  to  past  occur 
rences,  not  altogether  un mingled  with  speculations  as  to 
what  may  perchance  take  place  hereafter,  such  as  I  hope 
may  not  prove  altogether  unentertaining  to  such  as  may 
honor  these  humble  lucubrations  with  a  cursory  perusal. 
All  will  admit  that  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  one  of  the  greatest 
dignity  and  importance,  and  that  the  manifold  and  ar 
duous  duties  connected  therewith  demand  for  their  suc 
cessful  performance  powers  of  intellect  and  traits  of  char 
acter  rarely  found  united  in  any  one  individual.  Surely 
no  man  could  be  judged  worthy  to  occupy  this  exalted 
position  who  is  not  possessed  of  various  and  extended 
learning — who  is  not  a  vigorous  and  correct  thinker — 
who  is  not  as  free  as  human  nature  can  be  expected  to 
be  from  the  domination  of  prejudice  and  passion  of  every 
kind — who  is  not  a  man  of  spotless  and  unquestioned 
integrity — whose  habits  of  life  are  not  marked  with  in 
dustry,  sobriety,  and  a  profound  sense  of  responsibility  to 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  and  to  the  people,  for  the 
promotion  of  whose  welfare  and  happiness  this  Constitu 
tion  and  these  laws  have  been  ordained  and  established. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  suggest  that  no  man  should  be  ele 
vated  to  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States 
who  has  never  taken  part  in  the  scenes  of  political  con 
troversy,  or  whose  opinions  in  regard  to  the  gravest  con 
stitutional  questions  are  wholly  unknown.  Under  our 
system  of  government,  it  would  be  egregiously  absurd  to 
suppose  that  any  individual  will  ever  be  found  who  shall 
at  the  same  time  have  given  satisfactory  evidence  of  su 
perior  ability,  and  yet  have  avoided  altogether  the  dis 
cussion  of  those  questions  which  involve  the  prosperity 
and  safety  of  the  whole  Republic.  I  am,  moreover,  free 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  411 

to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  any  President  of  the  United 
States  would  be  justly  held  amenable  to  censure  who 
should  call  to  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  a  man  whose  con 
stitutional  opinions  were  not  fully  known  to  him  ;  and  I 
should  vehemently  doubt  the  sincerity  of  any  Chief  Mag 
istrate  who  should  nominate  any  man  to  a  seat  upon  the 
Supreme  Bench  of  the  Union  whose  views  of  constitu 
tional  law  were  not  in  unison  with  those  openly  avowed 
by  himself.  Nobody  now  blames  the  elder  Adams  for 
calling  John  Marshall  to  preside  over  the  deliberations 
of  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  existing  under  Federal 
authority  ;  nor  is  Jackson  at  this  time  complained  of  for 
nominating  for  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  the  lamented 
Roger  B.  Taney  ;  and  yet  were  both  of  these  eminent  per 
sonages  zealous,  outspoken,  and  influential  partisan  lead 
ers  anterior  to  their  elevation  to  the  Bench. 

There  is  one  proposition,  the  correctness  of  which  I  feel 
certain  that  no  reasonable  man  will  ever  be  heard  to  dis 
pute,  which  is,  that  any  given  President  is  bound  to  do 
all  in  his  power  to  find  out  the  most  suitable  person  in 
all  respects  to  receive  this  high  honor  at  his  hands  ;  and 
that  when  he  shall  have  deliberately  resolved  to  select 
such  an  individual  for  the  place  of  Chief  Justice,  he  is 
equally  bound  to  send  in  his  nomination  to  the  Senate 
without  the  smallest  regard  to  the  illiberal  scoffings  or 
ridicule,  either  of  those  politically  opposed  to  him,  or  to 
the  protestations  of  selfish  and  intriguing  factionists  of 
his  own  particular  party. 

With  these  preliminary  suggestions  I  will  now  proceed 
to  the  principal  task  which  lies  before  me. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  come  into  social  life  in  the  bosom 
of  a  singularly  virtuous  and  well-ordered  community,  and 
to  have  my  first  lessons  of  experience  amid  many  of  those 
who  had  been  the  immediate  friends  and  neighbors  of  the 
venerated  Washington  and  his  illustrious  compeers  of 


412  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

Revolutionary  renown.  The  first  American  statesman 
who  became  familiarly  known  to  me  in  early  life  was 
Chief  Justice  John  Marshall,  whose  gravely  benignant 
aspect,  and  whose  simple  and  unaffected  manners,  are  yet 
vividly  pictured  on  my  memory.  Whilst  a  student  of 
law  in  the  well-known  town  of  Warren  ton,  distant  only 
about  fifty  miles  from  the  city  in  which  I  write,  I  saw  this 
remarkable  man  repeatedly.  For  many  years  of  his  event 
ful  and  most  useful  life  he  was  accustomed  to  pay  an  an 
nual  visit  to  his  native  county  of  Fauquier,  where  he  was 
the  owner  of  a  considerable  landed  estate,  and  where  he 
had  a  numerous  body  of  kinsmen  and  friends,  in  whose 
society  he  liked  to  unbend  himself  and  freshen  his  re 
membrance  of  years  gone  by.  Often  do  I  recreate  my 
own  fancy  by  bringing  this  truly  great  and  good  man  be 
fore  my  mental  vision  just  as  he  was  when  I  gazed  upon 
him  fifty  years  ago  placidly  loitering  along  the  streets  of 
our  county  town,  on  court  days,  exchanging  kindly 
greetings  with  the  friends  of  his  youth  of  all  classes,  hear 
ing  from  their  own  lips  all  of  good  or  of  evil  which  might 
perchance  have  befallen  either  themselves  or  their  faini 
lies  since  he  had  last  encountered  them,  and  seeming  to 
take  a  real  and  affectionate  interest  in  everything  con 
nected  with  their  welfare  and  happiness.  Well  do  I  re 
member  that  this  gratifying  spectacle  was  sometimes  sur 
veyed  by  one  who  stood  to  me  at  the  time  in  relations  of 
tender  and  confidential  companionship;  whose  extraordi 
nary  intellectual  promise,  associated  with  all  the  moral 
graces  that  can  adorn  young,  energetic  manhood,  had  al 
ready  called  forth  the  most  favorable  prognostics  of  his 
future  fame  and  usefulness  from  a  host  of  loving  and  ad 
miring  friends;  prognostics  which  have  been  since  most 
abundantly  realized :  for  that  friend  of  my  early  years 
has,  in  the  half  century  that  has  rolled  away  since  he  and 
I  were  fellow-students  in  our  native  State  and  poring 


CASKET   OF   ftfiMlNiSCEfrCES.  413 

over  together  the  pages  of  Coke  and  Blackstone,  has  ac 
quired  a  high  reputation,  both  as  a  jurist  and  advocate, 
in  one  of  the  largest  and  most  populous  States  of  the 
Union  ;  has  accumulated  a  large  estate  chiefly  by  his  la 
bors  as  a  barrister,  and  is  now  honorably  occupy  ing  a  seat 
upon  the  Bench  of  that  high  tribunal  of  which  John 
Marshall  was  himself  the  chief  ornament,  when  he  and  I, 
full  lifty  years  ago,  were  surveying  with  an  affectionate 
admiration — not  unmixed  perchance  with  a  certain  sense 
of  awe — the  serene  glories  which  encircled  this  illustri 
ous  personage.  Will  that  friend  of  my  youth  forgive  me 
if  I  remind  him  here  of  certain  mystic  colloquies  held 
between  two  students  of  law  at  a  period  in  the  dim  past, 
now  so  remote,  touching  the  expediency  of  selecting  be 
times  some  well-known  model  of  intellectual  excellence  for 
imitation,  in  order  to  keep  alive  our  hopes  and  preserve 
our  energies  in  full  vigor  until  those  lofty  heights  of  re 
nown  should  be  at  last  reached  to  which  a  generous  and 
all-potential  ambition  was  even  then  prompting  us  both 
to  aspire  ?  Will  he  forgive  me  if  I  take  a  still  greater 
liberty,  and  suggest  that  even  at  the  time  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  whilst  contemplating  the  grave  splendors  associ 
ated  with  the  name  of  Marshall,  it  was  not  in  his  own 
noble  nature  to  remain  altogether  unconscious  of  some 
such  inspiring  glow  of  magnanimous  rivalry  as  once 
warmed  the  bosom  of  the  youthful  Themistocles,  and 
which  impelled  him  to  heave  a  sigh  over  the  hard-earned 
glories  of  the  great  Miltiades  ? 

O  £5 

It  will  be,  at  least,  regarded  by  some  as  a  remarkable 
fact,  that  when,  some  eighty  years  ago,  at  a  time  when 
J'udge  Taney's  early  demise  or  resignation  was  confidently 
expected  in  a  few  days  to  occur,  the  office  of  Chief  Jus 
tice,  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  arising  as  described,  was 
tendered  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Judge  Swayne ;  so  that  if  he 
is  not  now  occupying  this  high  place,  it  is  not  because 


414  CASKET   01*  REMINISCENCES. 

the  lamented  Lincoln  did  not  deem  him  worthy  to  hold 
it.  Had  J 'resident  Lincoln's  original  intentions  touching 
this  matter  been  carried  into  effect,  then,  within  (compar 
atively  speaking)  a  very  limited  period  of  time,  the  Amer 
ican  people  would  have  seen  two  Chief  Justices  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  Union  selected  from  the  same  county  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Ancient  Dominion  ! 

A  short  statement  of  facts  will  render  this  matter  a 
little  plainer.  President  Lincoln  did  formally  tender  the 
place  of  Chief  Justice  to  Mr.  Justice  Swayne.  He,  as 
formally,  did  accept  the  proffered  honor.  But  this  chanced 
to  take  place  in  the  year  1864,  when  a  dire  civil  war  was 
yet  raging,  and  when  a  long  protraction  of  hostilities  was 
to  be  apprehended  if  perfect  harmony  and  concord  should 
not  be  preserved  in  the  non-seceding  States  of  the  Union. 
Chief  Justice  Chase  had  been  spoken  of  very  freely  as  a 
probable  candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  opposition  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  whose  re-election  was  by  many  deemed 
essential  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Union  cause.  Now, 
though  at  the  time  of  Judge  Taney's  actual  decease  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  been  nominated,  yet  his  name  continued  to 
be  mentioned  freely  in  connection  with  the  Presidency, 
and  it  was  by  many  deemed  possible  that  Mr.  Chase  might 
be  eventually  persuaded  to  run  as  an  independent  candi 
date.  Whether  there  was  any  reason  to  expect  that  he 
\vould  thus  yield  to  the  outspoken  wishes  of  some  of  his 
political  and  personal  friends  I  have  no  adequate  means 
of  deciding.  But  the  following  facts  are  certain  :  Patriots 
became  everywhere  anxious  to  prevent  any  conflict  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Republican  party,  which,  it  was  feared, 
might  bring  about  the  election  of  General  McClellan. 
Under  these  circumstances  a  number  of  enlightened  and 
well-intentioned  citizens  favorable  to  the  election  of  Mr. 
Chase  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  urged  him  to  consent 
to  the  elevation  of  this  gentleman  to  the  position  of  Chief 


CASKET   Otf   REMINISCENCES.  415 

Justice ;  in  consideration  of  which  they  proffered  to 
withdraw  him  altogether  from  the  field  of  contest. 
This  was  a  sore  trial  to  President  Lincoln.  He  did  not 
at  all  donbt  the  competency  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  he  was  a 
warm  admirer  of  his  character  and  abilities.  But  he  had 
already  tendered  the  Chief  Justiceship  to  his  friend,  Judge 
Swayne.  Then  it  was  that  the  magnanimity  and  elevated 
disinterestedness  of  Justice  Swayne  were  made  nobly 
manifest.  When  President  Lincoln  approached  him  on 
the  subject  in  the  most  delicate  and  decorous  manner,  and 
informed  him  of  the  perplexing  dilemma  in  which  he 
had  become  involved,  he  did  not  hesitate  one  instant  to 
release  his  loved  and  honored  friend  from  the  pledge  which 
he  had  voluntarily  given  him ;  and  he  cheerfully  con 
sented  to  sacrifice  his  own  claims  to  official  promotion 
upon  the  altar  of  his  country's  happiness. 

There  is  another  curipus  fact  which  I  deem  it  proper 
to  relate,  an  account  of  which  I  gave  in  a  volume  pub 
lished  by  me  six  years  ago.  Judge  Chase  is  known  to 
have  been  for  many  years  a  Democrat  in  principle.  He 
was  from  the  days  of  early  manhood  a  zealous  and  fear 
less  opponent  of  domestic  slavery,  and  had  often  signal 
ized  his  devotion  to  principle  by  strenuous  opposition  as 
an  advocate  to  what  was  called  the  fugitive  slave  law.  He 
was  no  secessionist,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term,  but 
he  was  conscientiously  regardful  of  what  he  recognized  as 
the  reserved  rigtts  of  the  States,  and  he  was  clearly  of 
opinion  that  the  fugitive  slave  law  was  a  serious  infrac 
tion  of  these  rights.  When  he  was  acting  in  the  office 
of  Governor  of  Ohio  he  resolved  to  bring  this  matter  to 
a  test  in  the  courts  of  the  State.  The  manner  in  which 
the  question  as  to  the  validity  of  the  law  was  raised  is 
familiar  to  all.  When  the.  matter  was  under  examination 
in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  there  were  three  judges 
there  presiding.  One  of  these  was  known  to  regard  the 


416  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

law  as  constitutional ;   another  was  ready  to  express  an 
opposite  opinion  ;  whilst  the  third,  Judge  Swan,  was  sup 
posed  not  to  have  made  up  his  mind    upon  the  subject. 
President  Buchanan  had  employed  Judge  Swayne,  then  a 
practicing  lawyer  in  Columbus,  to  make  an  argument  in 
support  of  the  right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  enforce 
the  fugitive  slave  law  upon  the  soil  of  Ohio.     It  was  per 
fectly  well  known  that  if  the  State  Supreme  Court  should 
decide  against  the  validity  of  the  law,  and  Mr.  Buchanan 
should  still  persist  in  enforcing  it,  the  Governor  of  the 
State  would  feel  it  to  be  his  duty  to  resist  the  attempt  in 
arms;  and  that  he  had  accordingly  made  all  necessary  ar 
rangements  to  carry  his  views  into  effect.     It  was  evident, 
therefore,  that  it  depended  essentially  upon  the  action  of 
Juclge  Swan  whether  domestic  peace  should  be  maintained 
or  a  bloody  civil  war  be  initiated.     I  arrived  in  Columbus 
on  the  very  day  that  this  controversy  was  brought  to  a 
conclusion,  and  immediately  on  reaching  the  hotel  where 
I  put  up,  I  heard  that  Judge  Swayne  had  made  the  ablest 
speech  ot  his  life  in  support  of  the  law,  and  that  the  Su 
preme  Court  had  decided  the  question  at  issue  in  favor  of 
the  United  States.     Thus  was  civil  war  prevented.    How 
a  conflict  between  the  State  of  Ohio  and  the  Government 
upon  this  most  appalling  question  would  have  resulted  it 
is  difficult  now  to  say ;  but  no  one  can  deny  that  Judge 
Swayne  acquired  more  true  glory  on  this  occasion  than 
twenty  years'  service  as  Chief  Justice  would  be  likely  to 
procure  him. 


GASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 


"REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXVIIL 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  CHASE — GOVERNOR  BROWNLOW JEFF  DAVIS. 

A  very  unexpected  and  exceedingly  welcome  letter  from 
my  valued  friend,  Senator  Brownlow,  reminds  me  of  a 
duty  which  I  had  intended  sometime  since  to  perform  in 
reference  to  a  distinguished  personage,  now  no  longer 
among  the  living,  but  for  whom  I  have  for  many  years 
cherished  a  very  elevated  esteem  and  a  very  cordial  friend 
ship.  I  allude  to  the  late  Chief  Justice  Chase.  I  made 
some  allusions  to  this  gentleman  several  days  since — 
certainly,  as  my  heart  avouches,  in  a  most  kindly  and 
respectful  spirit ;  hut  I  soon  found  myself  grossly  misun 
derstood  in  reference  to  this  matter  by  some  injudicious 
and  superserviceable  friend  of  his,  by  reason  of  whose  ob 
jurgatory  criticisms  I  was  compelled  to  stand  so  promptly 
and  earnestly  upon  my  own  defense  that  the  duty  which 
I  felt  to  be  owing  to  the  illustrious  dead  was  for  the  time 
left  but  in  part  discharged.  Senator  Brownlow,  having 
seen  the  somewhat  embarrassing  predicament  in  which 
the  unknown  writer  just  referred  to  had  placed  me,  and 
concurring  with  me  in  the  main,  as  will  be  presently  seen, 
touching  the  Chief  Justice's  character  and  qualifications, 
as  well  as  in  regard  to  his  undeniable  preference  for  the 
performance  of  official  functions  other  than  those  of  a 
strictly  judicial  nature,  has  been  good  enough  by  the  last 
mail  to  send  me  some  evidence  illustrative  of  this  delicate 
and  interesting  point,  to  the  present  adduction  of  which 
I  suppose  that  no  dispassionate  and  sound-thinking  friend 
of  the  late  Chief  Justice  will  be  at  all  inclined  to  object. 

Before  presenting  Senator Brownlow's  letter  tome,  just 
27  R 


418  CASKET  Otf  REMINISCENCES. 

received,  and  that  of  Judge  Chase,  which  comes  inclosed 
therein,  I  have  one  or  two  remarks  to  make,  which  I  trust 
will  not  have  the  ill-fortune  to  give  offense  in  any  quarter. 
I  have  long  thought  the  office  of  President  of  the  United 
States  one  of  more  dignity  than  any  other  whatever,  and 
requiring  for  the  proper  and  creditable  discharge  of  the 
functions  annexed  thereto  the  highest  powers  of  intellect 
and  the  most  commanding  qualities  of  soul.  To  give  to  a 
country  like  ours  a  four  years'  administration  uniformly 
marked  with  wisdom  and  virtue  equals  my  highest  ideas 
of  human  glory,  and  a  man  like  Chief  Justice  Chase,  who 
had  every  reason  to  regard  himself  as  capable  of  occupy 
ing  the  Presidential  office  with  credit  to  himself  and  with 
honor  to  the  Republic,  was  more  than  justified  in  being 
willing  to  enter  upon  a  field  of  duty  so  much  more  exten 
sive  and  variegated  than  that  which  is  presented  to  the 
view  of  any  man  whatever  whose  moral  and  intellectual 
energies  are  confined  within  the,  comparatively  speaking, 
very  limited  compass  of  Chief*  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  Union.  I  do  not  at  all  doubt  that  if  any 
Chief  Justice  that  the  country  has  known  had  at  any 
time  found  the  Presidential  office  clearly  within  his  reach 
he  would  cheerfully  have  submitted  to  his  name's  being 
used  as  a  candidate  for  this  elevated  position.  Xor  do  I 
at  all  question  that  if  Chief  Justice  Chase  had  been  elected 
to  the  Presidency  he  would  have  shown  himself  to  be 
possessed  of  all  the  capability  demanded  for  the  hon 
orable  discharge  of  the  duties  annexed  thereto,  nor  that 
he  would  have  been  able  thereby  to  establish  many  addi 
tional  claims  to  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  his  coun 
trymen,  both  now  and  hereafter.  That  he  was  a  sound 
and  well-informed  lawyer  no  one,  so  far  as  I  am  informed, 
has  ever  yet  denied  ;  that  he  was  honest,  diligent,  and 
courteous  in  the  discharge  of  his  judicial  functions  is  uni 
versally  admitted  ;  but  I  am,  and  always  have  been,  well 


Otf   REMINISCENCES.  4l9 

satisfied  that  lie  would  have  made  a  much  abler  President 
than  judge;  and  that  if  chosen  President,  with  his  very 
liberal,  progressive,  yet  conservative  views,  he  would  have 
given  to  the  country  such  an  administration  as  all  good  and 
patriotic  men  would  have  approved  and  commended.  The 
only  objection  which  has  ever  suggested  itself  to  rny  mind 
in  regard  to  Judge  Chase's  complete  success  in  the  per 
formance  of  the  duties  which  the  Chief  Executive  Magis 
trate  of  the  Republic  is  expected  to  take  upon  himself 
consists  in  the  fact  that  he  is  well  known  to  have  had 
rather  extreme  views  in  favor  of  what  are  called  State 
rights  and  State  sovereignty,  and  I  should  always  have 
feared  that  he  would  have  been  found,  in  certain  exigen 
cies  easy  to  be  imagined,  unduly  averse  to  the  exercise  of 
the  coercive  powers  of  the  General  Government,  as  Mr. 
Buchanan  is  known  to  have  been.  This  same  objection, 
I  suppose,  would  always  have  applied  with  equal,  and  per 
haps  with  superior,  force  to  the  renowned,  political  leader 
of  Georgia,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  a  man  of  great  virtue 
and  of  unquestionably  high  abilities,  but  whose  devotion 
to  the  dogma  of  secession,  it  seems  to  me,  might,  if  raised 
to  the  Presidential  station,  turn  out,  under  certain  cir- 
*  cumstances  possible  to  occur,  to  be  a  most  prolific  source 
of  mischief.  I  will  here  mention,  in  passing,  a  curious 
fact,  not,  I  think,  generally  known.  I  heard  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him  in  the  city  of  At 
lanta,  Ga.,  in  the  year  1860,  declare  that  his  friends  in 
the  Charleston  Democratic  Convention  of  that  period  from 
the  State  of  Illinois  had  been  requested  by  him,  if  they 
should  find  his  own  nomination  for  President  by  that 
body  impossible,  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  secure  this 
honor  to  his  friend  Mr.  Stephens.  In  thus  incidentally 
mentioning  this  distinguished  son  of  Georgia  I  seize  the 
opportunity  of  saying  that,  though  I  differ  from  him  very 
seriously  upon  many  public  questions  which  might  be 


420  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

^mentioned,  there  is  no  man  now  in  the  cotton-growing 
region  of  the  Republic  at  all  equal,  in  my  judgment,  to 
him,  in  strength  and  clearness  of  mind,  in  general  mental 
culture,  and  in  capacity  for  the  industrious,  earnest,  and 
persevering  exam ination  of  difficult  and  perplexing  public 
questions.  His  honesty  and  nobleness  of  spirit  are  be 
yond  praise;  no  man  is  more  perfectly  independent  in  his 
opinions  and  sentiments  than  he  is;  no  man  is  more  in 
clined  to  do  full  and  perfect  justice  to  political  adversaries 
of  every  cast,  and  despite  his  abstract  devotion  to  the 
strange  and  impracticable  theory  of  secession,  the  Repub 
lic  does  not  hold  within  its  limits  a  man  of  more  en 
larged  and  disinterested  patriotism,  and  of  a  more  ex 
panded  Christian  charity,  than  Alexander  H.  Stephens. 

So  much  of  the  letter  of  Senator  Brownlow  as  does  not 
relate  to  matter  strictly  private  will  now  be  set  forth,  to 
gether  with  the  whole  letter  of  Chief  Justice  Chase  to 
him,  in  disregard  of  his  own  request  that  the  portion 
commendatory  of  himself  should  be  excluded.  I  take 
this  course  because  (with  all  due  deference)  I  do  not 
think  Mr.  Brownlow  has  a  right  to  conceal  from  the 
world  the  opinion  entertained  by  such  a  person  as  Judge 
Chase  in  relation  to  the  character  of  a  public  servant  so 
cruelly  traduced  as  I  hold  my  friend  Mr.  Brownlow  for 
many  years  past  to  have  been  : 

KNOXVILLE.  .4 //</>/*•/ 28,  1S7H. 
ll>m.  H.  X.  F<>ot<>  : 

MY  DEAR  GOVERNOR  :  I  urn  very  grateful  for  the  kindly,  generous 
words  yon  have  written  of  me  in  the  Chronicle.  When,  in  18(55,  I  took 
up  my  residence  in  Nashville  as  Governor  of  this  State,  you  were  one 
of  the  very  few  men  of  character  and  influence  who  had  been  identified 
with  the  defeated  Confederacy  who  did  not  meet  me  with  denunciation 
of  the  loyal  State  government  inaugurated.  And  you  were  the  only 
citi/en  of  Tennessee  of  prominent  position  in  the  government  of  the 
rebel  confederacy  in  its  civil  or  military  departments  who  had  the 
courage  openly  to  accept  the  results  of  the  war,  acknowledge  the  over 
throw  of  the  doctrine  of  secession,  and  favor  the  protection,  education, 


CASKET    OF   KEMrNISCENCES.  421 

and  amelioration  of  the  recently  emancipated  colored  population  of  the 
State.  If  other  men  in  Middle  and  West  Tennessee  who  held  seats  in 
the  rebel  Congress,  or  occupied  high  military  station,  had  acted  in  the 
spirit  which  governed  your  conduct,  instead  of  meeting  the  friends  of 
the  Union  in  a  spirit  of  hatred  and  factious  opposition,  they  would  not 
have  had  so  much  complaint  to  make  against  what  they  termed 
u  Brownlow's  disfranchising  despotism.'' 

I  am  rejoiced  to  see  that  you  are  handling  without  gloves  that  cold 
blooded  conspirator  and  heartless  demagogue,  Colonel  Jefferson  Davis, 
of  Memphis.  He  is,  and  has  always  been,  one  of  the  worst  men  in  the 
South.  When  bearing  aloft  the  old  Hag  of  the  Union  you  defeated  him 
tor  Governor  of  Mississippi  you  gave  the  only  check  to  the  mad  ambi 
tion  of  this  modern  Cataline  which  he  ever  received,  except  when 
Wilson's  cavalry  nabbed  him  in  the  petticoats,  hoops,  and  bonnet  of 
one  of  those  old  women  who  are  to  aid  him  in  his  newcampaign  against 
the  Union.  From  defiantly  preaching  treason  in  Virginia  I  believe 
that  you  can  drive  him  into  retirement,  and  the  country  will  never 
more  hear  of  Jeff.,  or  be  menaced  with  his  petticoat  brigade. 

If  he  had  as  much  self-respect  as  Judas  he  would  go  out  and  hang 
himself;  or  if  he  were  capable  of  realizing  his  deep  disgrace,  and  the 
contempt  in  which  good  men  hold  him  and  his  puny  efforts  at  a  new 
revolt  against  the  Federal  Union,  he  would  feel  like  exclaiming,  as  did 
a  baffled  conspirator  of  ancient  times,  but  a  wiser  one, 

Let  me  live  unseen,  unknown, 

And  unlamented  let  me  die ; 
Nor  mound,  nor  monument,  nor  stone, 

Tell  where  T  lie. 

On  one  condition  I  would  be  glad  to  see  old  Jeff,  continue  his  speak 
ing  campaign  just  inaugurated  at  White  Sulphur  Springs.  I  under 
stand  that  some  of  the  Rip  Van  Winkle  Democrats,  who  have  not  yet 
learned  that  slavery  is  abolished  and  the  Democratic  party  dead,  desire 
to  run  Colonel  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Memphis,  for  Governor  of  Tennessee. 
I  hope  they  will  do  so,  and  I  believe  Davis  wants  to  make  the  race.  In 
that  event  I  hope  to  see  you  take  the  field  as  a  candidate. 

For  several  years  I  regularly  corresponded  with  the  late  Chief  Justice 
Chase.  I  was  personally  much  attached  to  him,  had  the  honor  of  fre 
quently  being  made  the  recipient  of  his  esteem,  and  while,  in  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  I  was  compelled  to  dissent  from  some  of  his  views,  I 
regarded  him  as  a  very  able  and  patriotic  citizen. 

Since  reading  your  Reminiscences  I  have  accidentally  found  one  of 
several  letters  he  wrote  to  me  on  reconstruction.  I  inclose  it,  that 
you  may  copy  and  publish,  if  you  see  fit,  that  portion  referring  to  the 


4*22  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Fourteenth  Amendment  and  its  adoption  by  Tennessee.  You  ran 
publish  all  of  it  except  his  allusions  to  myself,  of  a  personal  and  com 
plimentary  character. 

******** 

Your  friend, 

W.  G.  BROWNLOW. 

And  here  is  the  interesting  letter  of  Chief  Justice  Chase 
in  totidem  verbis  : 

WASHINGTON,  June  14.  1860. 

DEAR  GOVERNOR  :  This  is  the  first  time  I  have  addressed  you  since 
1  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  you  a  special  agent  of  the  Depart 
ment.  Each  of  us  is  in  a  different  position  now.  You  have  been  made 
Governor  of  Tennessee,  and  so  called  to  duties  which  require  the 
clearest  of  heads  and  the  bravest  of  hearts,  and  have  been  found  compe 
tent  and  faithful.  T  have  become  a  judge,  in  which  office  T  confess 
myself  less  at,  home  than  when  a  co-operator  with  the  friends  of  union 
and  freedom  in  the  grand  cause  of  human  progress.  But  both  as  a  judge 
and  as  a  citizen  I  feel  a  profound  interest  in  the  complete  restoration 
of  the  Union  and  the  perfect  re-establishment  of  civil  order. 

There  now  seems  to  be  a  way  open.  Congress  has  proposed  an 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  which,  it  seems  to  me,  must  be,  on  the 
whole,  acceptable  to  all  loyal  men,  arid  if  it  can  be  adopted  at  once  by 
Tennessee,  its  adoption  by  all  the  States — or  at  least  the  necessary 
three-fourths — seems  reasonably  certain.  Besides  this,  its  adoption  by 
Tennessee  will  secure  the  immediate  admission  of  the  Senators  and 
Representatives  from  that  State  to  their  seats  in  Congress,  which  the 
whole  country  seem  anxiously  to  desire.  I  verily  think  no  event  could 
be  more  auspicious  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  States  than  this. 

I  dare  say  this  letter  is  only  one  of  hundreds  prompted  by  the  same 
feeling.  You  will  do  yourself  a  great  honor,  and  the  country  a  most 
important  service,  if  you  will  immediately  convoke  the  Legislature  and 
submit  the  amendment  to  its  action.  That  action,  if  it  be  ratification — 
prompt  ratification,  so  that  the  Senators  and  members  may  take  their 
seats  before  Congress  adjourns — will  till  the  hearts  of  patriotic  men 
throughout  the  land  with  joy. 

I  shall  be  glad  to  have  a  letter  from  you.  but  beg  you  not  to  consider 
yourself  under  any  obligation  to  take  the  time  from  other  subjects  for 
an  answer. 

Sincerely  your  friend, 

S.  L\  CHASE. 

His  Excellency  VV.  G.  BROWNIXMV. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  423 

It  is  impossible  to  read  over,  ever  so  cursorily,  this  judi 
cious  and  patriotic  letter  of  Judge  Chase  without  per 
ceiving  the  intense  solicitude  which  he  felt,  at  the  time  of 
the  writing  thereof,  for  the  earliest  possible  ratification  of 
that  most  important  constitutional  amendment,  which, 
by  giving  the  fullest  protection  to  the  new-found  rights  of 
the  unfortunate  and  long-oppressed  children  of  Africa, 
opened  the  way  also  to  the  speedy  restoration  of  the 
whites  of  the  South,  then  but  recently  emerged  from  the 
fires  of  the  rebellion,  to  the  sacred  and  invaluable  politi 
cal  rights  which  they  had  been  so  deplorably  persuaded  to 
repudiate.  I  have  several  times  had  occasion  to  lament 
that  this  act  of  long-deferred  justice  to  those  so  cruelly 
held  in  slavery  for  centuries  had  not  been  voluntarily  per 
formed  by  the  ancient  white  inhabitants  of  the  South 
themselves,  without  having  to  be  prompted  thereto  from 
any  outside  quarter.  But  as  the  crust  of  that  obstinate 
bigotry  which  would  still  seem  to  bedarken  the  intellects 
of  some  of  the  Bourbonites  of  the  South  had  not  yet  been 
even  partially  broken,  there  was  no  mode  left  of  accom 
plishing  the  great  object  specified  except  the  one  carried 
into  operation  by  the  enlightened  friends  of  progress  and 
civil  concord  in  the  various  parts  of  the  Republic.  And 
now  that  this  good  work  has  been  consummated,  we  may 
well  look  back  to  those  whose  prescience  and  unwavering 
patriotism  accomplished  it  with  gratitude  and  respect. 
That  the  part  which  Judge  Chase  performed  at  this  fear 
ful  crisis  has  been  generally  approved  by  his  countrymen, 
as  it  certainly  will  be  still  more  emphatically  by  posterity, 
no  one  will  be  inclined  to  doubt  who  considers  the  fact 
that  a  very  large  portion  of  the  Southern  Democrats,  so- 
called,  in  1868  struggled  hard  to  get  this  eminent  states 
man  nominated  for  the  office  of  President  of  the  United 
States ;  and  it  is  really  one  of  the  most  melancholy  in 
stances  of  moral  dereliction  which  has  ever  yet  occurred 


4*24  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

that  there  are  now  a  very  large  number  of  these  very  per 
sons,  including  such  men  as  Jeff.  Davis,  R.  M.  T.  Hunter, 
et  id  omne  genus,  who  are  apparently  desirous  of  undoing, 
as  far  as  it  may  be  in  their  power,  the  goodly  work  of 
national  reconstruction,  of  which  this  same  fourteenth 
amendment  is  the  chief  corner-stone. 

In  reference  to  what  my  friend  Senator  Brownlow  says 
so  generously  about  his  desire  that  I  should  take  the  field 
as  a  candidate  for  governor  in  Tennessee,  should  Jet!'. 
Davis  be  so  stupid  as  to  allow  himself  to  be  announced  as 
an  aspirant  to  this  dignity,  I  have  at  this  time  but  little 
to  say.  I  do  not  think  that  he  is  yet  quite  madman 
enough  to  attempt  such  an  experiment,  though  it  has  been 
said : 

Perrupit  AcluTonta  Hrrciileus  labor  ; 
Nil  mortalibus  arduum  est; 
Coeluin  ipsum  petimus  stultitia,  neque 
Per  nostrum  patimur  rccelus 
Iracunila  Jovein  ponere  t'uliuina. 

Should  I  be  disappointed,  though,  in  regard  to  this  par 
ticular,  and  my  old  Mississippi  rival  should  hereafter  be 
seen  attempting  to  move  through  Tennessee  as  a  solicitant 
of  the  suffrages  of  that  high-minded  and  patriotic  people 
as  a  gubernatorial  candidate,  I  will  not  say  that  I  may 
not  be  persuaded  to  render  him  all  fitting  attention  ;  for 
such  a  deep  and  damning  disgrace  as  the  election  of  this 
grand  architect  of  mischief  to  the  high  position  referred 
to  would  be  indeed  recognized  as  an  evil  by  me  and  by 
all  honest  and  patriotic  men  in  Tennessee,  of  a  nature  pos 
itively  unendurable.  Though,  in  all  gravity,  I  beg  leave 
to  assure  my  friend,  Senator  Brownlow,  and  all  others 
participating  in  his  present  expectations  as  to  Mr.  Davis' 
intention  to  become  a  gubernatorial  candidate,  that  1 
know  him  far  too  well  to  suppose  it  even  possible  that  he 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  425 

should  ever  become  willing  to  traverse  the  hills  and  val 
leys  of  our  noble  old  Commonwealth  upon  an  errand  so 
utterly  hopeless ;  nor  do  I  see  how  any  one  can  consider 
such  a  presumptuous  effort  for  the  renovation  of  his  faded 
o-lories  at  all  possible  who  bears  in  recollection  the  curious 
and  edifying  fact  that,  according  to  accounts  bearing  evi 
dent  tokens  of  credibility,  the  late  imperial  despot  of 
Richmond  has,  within  the  last  twelve  months,  or  some 
such  space  of  time,  on  at  least  one  notable  occasion,  found 
it  impracticable  to  travel,  even  on  a  well-arranged  railroad 
car,  from  Memphis  to  Huntsville,  without  finding  him 
self  inextricably  involved  in  a  predicament  exceedingly 
similar  to  the  one  so  glowingly  described  by  Homer,  who 
tells  us  that  Mars  was  found  at  one  time,  and  exhibited 
to  the  view  of  the  Celestials,  by  Vulcan,  in  an  ingenious 
wire-constructed  cage,  which  he  had  managed,  amid  the 
sweet  hours  of  nocturnal  slumber,  to  cast  about  the  fierce 
God  of  War  and  Yrenus,  his  luckless  consociate  in  bliss ; 
at  sight  of  which  sadly  ludicrous  spectacle  all  Olympus 
was  stirred  to  its  foundations, 

And  uiiextiiig'tiishetl  laughter  shook  the  skie,<. 

I  must  say  to  my  excellent  friend,  Senator  Brownlow, 
with  unaffected  sincerity,  that  I  have  lost  all  that  desire 
of  official  advancement  of  any  kind  which  I  have  once, 
perhaps,  felt  too  fervently,  and  that  though  the  good  peo 
ple  of  Mississippi,  of  California,  and  of  Tennessee  have 
severally,  in  former  years,  done  me  far  more  than  justice 
in  their  estimate  of  my  limited  personal  deserts,  I  have  no 
disposition  whatever  further  to  trouble  the  people  or  their 
representatives  anywhere  with  my  own  claims  to  official 
advancement.  At  present  I  am  enjoying  in  the  most 
ample  manner  the  luxury  of  individual  independence.  I 
think,  speak,  and  write  exactly  as  I  please,  either  in  con- 


421)  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

(lemnation  of  the  wicked  or  in  commendation  of  the 
good,  whether  in  places  of  authority  or  in  private  life; 
and  this  to  me  is  as  near  an  approach  to  heavenly  beati 
tude  as  one  yet  in  the  vale  of  mortality  should  dare  to 
aspire  to.  In  truth,  I  have  of  late,  more  from  an  observa 
tion  of  the  experience  of  others  than  on  account  of  any 
thing  which  has  ever  happened  to  myself  personally,  been 
much  inclined  to  apply  the  beautiful  language  of  the 
famed  Archbishop  of  Cambrai  descriptive  of  the  arts  ne 
cessary  to  be  used  in  order  to  conciliate  the  favor  of  the 
crowned  potentates  of  earth,  to  the  case  of  such  as  seek 
the  affection  and  support  of  the  sovereign  people  of  o in- 
own  age  and  country,  and  to  say  with  him : 

oh  !  <jue  on  est  malhereux,  quand  on  est  au  dessus  du  reste  des 
homines!  sonvent  on  ne  pent  voir  la  verite  par  ses  propres  yenx ;  on 
est  environne  de  gens  qni  Pempechent  d'arriver  jnsqu  'a  c«>lni  qui  com 
mando  ;  ohaciiti  est  interesse  a  le  tromper  ;  chacnn,  sous  une  apparenee 
de  zele  cache  son  ambition.  On  fait  semblant  d'aimcr  le  roi,  et  on 
n'aime  que  les  richesses  qn'il  donne ;  on  Palme  si  pen.  <iue  pour  obtenir 
ses  favenrs  on  le  flatte  et  on  le  trahit. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  427 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XXXIX. 

THE  DUELLO LIFE  IN    THE    SOUTH PERSONAL    COMBAT — THE 

ROB  ROY  OF  THE    MISSISSIPPI A    THRILLING    NARRATIVE — 

REMINISCENCES     OF     SARGENT    S.    PRENTISS,     ALEXANDER    K. 
M'CLUNt,!,  AND    OTHERS. 

In  the  winter  of  183U-'31  1  left  Tuscumbia,  Alabama, 
after  a  residence  in  that  quiet  and  pleasant  village  of  five 
years,  and  migrated  to  the  State  of  Mississippi.  Having 
very  foolishly  violated  the  provisions  of  the  legislative 
act  of  the  former  State  prohibitory  of  dueling,  and  hav 
ing  been  disqualified  thereby  for  the  practice  of  my  pro 
fession  for  more  than  three  years,  and  the  business  of  the 
courts  in  that  particular  locality  having  meanwhile 
greatly  diminished,  I  had  some  months  before  prepared 
myself  as  well  as  I  could  for  the  exercise  of  my  profession 
in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  and  was,  in  point  of  fact,  ac 
tually  on  my  way  there  to  join  the  celebrated  Seth  Bar 
ton  as  a  co-partner  in  the  duties  of  a  calling  in  which  I 
had  always  felt  the  deepest  interest,  when,  stopping  for  a 
few  days  in  the  town  of  Natchez,  on  my  way  to  the  re 
nowned  Crescent  City,  circumstances  soon  arose  there 
which  brought  me  to  the  conclusion  to  remain  in  the 
young  and  rising  State  where  I  then  was,  which  was, 
upon  the  whole,  perhaps  the  very  best  thing  I  could  possi 
bly  have  done. 

Natchez  was  at  that  time  an  eminently  nourishing 
commercial  city,  and  was  the  abode  of  a  refined,  intelli 
gent,  prosperous,  and  hospitable  population.  The  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  State  was  then  in  session  there,  and 
various  other  courts  of  subordinate  jurisdiction  were  sit- 


428  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ting  from  time  to  time  during  my  sojourn  in  that  vicin 
age.  I  heard  a  number  if  cases  argued  with  great  learn 
ing  and  ability,  and  found  the  judges  of  the  courts  and 
the  members  of  the  bar  all  exceedingly  polite  and  accom 
modating.  F  formed  there  many  pleasant  and  valuable 
acquaintances,  every  individual  of  whom  I  believe  has 
since  deceased.  It  was  now  that  1  saw  the  renowned 
Sargent  8.  Prentiss  for  the  first  time.  He  had  just  been 
admitted  to  the  bar,  and  was  awakening  great  expecta 
tions  of  future  distinction  and  usefulness.  About  two 
years  before  Mr.  Prentiss  had  landed  in  Natchez,  as  I  re 
peatedly  heard  from  his  own  lips,  with  a  single  dime  in 
his  pocket.  He  had  no  acquaintance  there,  and  had  as 
yet  not  studied  a  profession.  His  college  course  had  just 
been  completed  at  an  excellent  institution  in  Xew  En 
gland,  and  being  quite  proficient  in  the  branches  of  learn 
ing  to  which  he  had  been  giving  his  attention,  he  de 
termined  to  make  an  effort  to  obtain  a  small  private 
school.  In  this  he  succeeded,  and  he  followed  this  re 
spectable  vocation  for  a  year  or  two,  during  which  period 
he  was  applying  himself  with  extreme  diligence  to  the 
study  of  law.  The  distinguished  Robert  J.  Walker,  then 
a  lawyer  in  full  practice,  was  kind  enough  to  open  his 
library  to  his  eager  and  inquiring  mind,  and  he  was  soon 
able  to  obtain  license  to  practice  in  all  the  courts  of  the 
State  of  Mississippi.  Immediately  on  making  his  debut  at 
the  bar  he  was  invited  by  General  Felix  Huston  to  enter 
his  office  as  a  full  partner,  and  some  two  or  three  months 
after  this  I  had  the  honor  of  seing  him,  as  I  have  men 
tioned. 

There  was  much  that  was  remarkable  in  the  appear 
ance  and  bearing  of  Mr.  Prentiss  at  this  time.  He  was 
not  more,  I  think,  than  five  feet  six-and-a-half  inches  in 
height  ;  was  very  stoutly  built,  and  well  proportioned. 
His  head  was  somewhat  large  when  compared  with  his 


OASKEt   Otf  REMINISCENCES.  429 

})ody  ;  it  was  one  that  a  Grecian  artist  might  well  desire 
to  copy.  His  forehead  was  wide,  high,  and  almost  semi 
circular  in  its  outline — so  admirably  were  all  the  more 
important  phrenological  organs  developed.  His  eye 
brows  were  full,  but  not  bushy,  and  were  gently  arched. 
His  eyes  were  large,  bright,  and  of  an  expression  in  which 
the  absolute  fearlessness  of  his  nature  was  very  happily 
blended  with  the  rarest  geniality  of  spirit  and  the  keenest 
relish  for  the  ludicrous.  He  had  but  a  moderate  beard, 
and  always  kept  his  face  cleanly  shaven.  His  chest  was 
one  of  greatest  expansiveness,  and,  though  perfectly 
straight  between  the  shoulders,  a  stranger  approaching  him 
from  the  rear  could  not  avoid  being  struck  with  the  sin 
gular  breadth  and  fullness  of  the  whole  tergal  superficies. 
His  nose  was  Grecian,  and  was  both  beautiful  in  its  shape 
and  highly  expressive.  His  upper  lip  was  a  little  shorter 
than  is  customary,  and  of  a  flexibility  I  have  never  seen 
equaled.  Often  was  he  seen  to  curl  it  up,  both  in  mirth 
and  anger,  displaying  to  view  a  set  of  strong,  well  set, 
and  beautifully  white  teeth.  He  had  all  his  life  suffered 
from  a  lameness  in  one  of  his  feet,  and  was  said  to  have  a 
good  deal  of  sensitiveness  in  regard  to  its  malformation, 
though  this  I  never  was  able  to  discover.  He  hobbled,  of 
course,  very  perceptibly  in  his  gait,  and  would,  I  suppose, 
have  found  it  difficult  to  walk  at  all  without  the  aid  of 
the  large  stick  which  was  his  perpetual  attendant.  When 
I  was  introduced  to  him  forty-two  years  ago,  Natchez 
was  already  full  of  his  fame.  He  had  delivered  several 
speeches  at  the  bar,  which  all  admitted  had  never  been 
equaled  there,  either  in  vigor  of  argument,  brilliancy  of 
expression,  or  rich  and  flowing  facetiousness.  Though 
very  modest  by  nature,  yet  he  had  already  had  such 
proofs  of  his  own  mental  superiority  to  all  with  whom  he 
was  thrown  in  competition  that  he  had  naturally  acquired 
a  noble  confidence  in  his  own  powers,  which  could  not 


430  CASKET   OF   feEMlNISCENCES, 

but  be  more  or  [ess  apparent,  both  in  his  aspect  and  de 
meanor,  and  alike  in  the  discussions  of  the  forum  and 
in  ordinary  converse.  I  was  talking  last  week  with  that 
man  of  exalted  genius  and  discriminating  judgment,  the 
Hon.  Joseph  Holt,  in  reference  to  his  former  illustrious 
rival  in  oratory  at  the  Mississippi  bar,  and  I  was  glad  to 
find  that  his  opinioVi  of  Mr.  Prentiss'  extraordinary  powers 
was  fully  in  unison  with  my  own.  I  have  been  long  satis- 
tied  that  in  reference  to  all  the  faculties  and  graces  which 
constitute  the  orator  Sargent  S.  Prentiss  was  equal  to  al 
most  any  man  of  modern  times,  and  such  is  my  estimate 
of  him  in  this  respect  that  my  admiration  of  any  man's 
mind  would  very  much  abate  whom  I  knew  to  have  ex 
pressed  a  different  opinion  after  once  listening  to  him  in 
a  case  calculated  to  draw  his  remarkable  powers  into  full 
display.  At  times  he  was  indeed  most  electrical  in  his 
utterances,  reminding  one  forcibly  of  the  soul-thrilling 
strains  of  an  Isaiah  or  an  Ezekiel,  of  the  majestic  thun- 
derings  of  a  Pericles  or  a  Patrick  Henry,  or  of  the  tender 
heart-melting  pathos  of  a  Somertield  or  a  Maftit.  I  was 
not  at  all  surprised  to  see  it  published  in  the  newspapers  of 
Boston  many  years  ago,  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Prentiss' 
visit  to  that  city  for  the  first  time,  that  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  memorable  dinner  speech  which  he  there  delivered, 
Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Everett,  with  eyes  overflowing  un 
der  his  wondrous  enunciations,  were  heard  generously 
whispering  to  each  other:  "We  have  never  heard  such 
eloquence  as  this  before." 

That  Mr.  Prentiss  was  a  man  of  fearless  temper,  almost 
sometimes  bordering  upon  audacity,  nobody  could  possi 
bly  know  better  than  this  reminiscent ;  that  lie  was  kind 
of  nature,  generous,  honorable,  truthful,  and  intensely  pa 
triotic  all  the  world  believes;  that  he  was  a  faithful 
friend,  a  tender  husband,  and  an  obedient  and  devoted 
son  the  fullest  evidence  has  been  long  since  given  to  the 


CASKET   Otf  HEMltflSCEtfCES.      •  431 

public.  Were  I  to  say  anything  which  could  at  all  de. 
tract  from  the  picture  already  drawn  of  this  estimable 
person,  I  could  only  say  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  in  his 
atter  years — not  having  sufficient  leisure,  perhaps,  to  de 
vote  to  books  of  science  and  the  volumes  of  varied  litera 
ture — his  intellectual  culture  did  not  exactly  keep  pace 
with  his  native  faculties. 

It  is  gratifying  to  me  to  remember  that  I  once  voted 
for  S.  S.  Prentiss  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  Congress, 
against  the  regularly  nominated  ticket  of  my  own  party, 
just  as  now  I  should  rejoice  to  recollect  that  I  had  co-op 
erated  in  elevating  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Union  two 
such  noble-spirited  and  gifted  American  statesmen  as 
Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster ;  whose  names,  could 
they  be  inscribed  on  the  Presidential  scroll  in  lieu  of  two 
others  that  I  could  specify,  would  transmit  our  loved  lie- 
public  to  the  men  of  other  ages  invested  writh  a  grand  and 
imperishable  luster  that  all  the  vain  and  heartless  tri 
umphs  of  faction,  devoted  to  the  ingathering  of  the  vul 
gar  and  perishable  spoils  of  office,  can  never  compensate. 

I  heard  nearly  all  of  Mr.  Prentiss'  most  renowned  ora 
torical  efforts  at  the  bar,  in  legislative  assemblies,  and  in 
presence  of  the  people.  I  should  say  that  his  speech  in 
prosecution  of  Alonzo  Phelps,  "  the  Rob  Roy  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  (as  he  himself  felicitously  entitled  him ;)  the  one 
he  made  in  prosecution  of  Mercer  Byrd  ;  his  much-talked- 
of  effort  at  Nashville  in  the  summer  of  1840,  during  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  that  period,  arid  that  oft-com 
mended  address  before  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
Congress  in  vindication  of  his  claim  to  a  seat  in  that 
body,  were  his  master-pieces.  I  chanced  to  be  enlisted  in 
the  defense  both  of  Phelps  and  Byrd,  and  had  therefore 
a  most  favorable  opportunity  of  appreciating  the  power 
exhibited  on  the  part  of  the  prosecution.  Alonzo  Phelps 
was  a  native  of  New  England.  According  to  his  own 


452  OASKET    OF   REMINISCENCED 

autobiographical  confession,  (drawn  up  chiefly  by  himself, 
but  in  my  own  presence,  a  few  days  before  his  death, 
while  detained  as  a  prisoner,)  he  had,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy, 
slain  a  rival  lover  in  his  native  vicinage,  secreted  the 
body  of  his  victim  in  a  neighboring  mill-pond,  and  fled  to 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  He  had  here  been  a  wan 
derer  for  many  years,  seldom  entering  a  human  habitation, 
and  subsisting  altogether  on  the  raw  meat  of  squirrels  and 
other  wild  animals  which  he  had  captured  in  the  chase. 
He  had  long  infested  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  had 
committed  eight  murders  and  more  than  sixty  robberies, 
and  had  a  dozen  times  broken  jail  and  escaped  the  pun 
ishment  of  the  law.  Strange  to  say,  he  was  a  ripe  and  ac 
curate  scholar,  and  when  taken  prisoner,  a  few  weeks 
subsequent  to  the  perpetration  of  his  last  murder,  had,  as 
I  personally  know,  a  pocket  copy  of  Horace  in  his  posses 
sion,  which  he  read  with  great  facility  and  with  far  more 
relish  for  the  rare  beauties  of  the  poetic  friend  and  protege 
of  the  great  Mecamas  than  Lord  Byron  reports  himself 
to  have  at  any  time  done.  The  trial  of  Phelps  took  place 
about  four  weeks  after  my  last  hostile  meeting  with  Pren- 
tiss,  and  when  F  defended  him  I  was  still  hobbling  on 
crutches.  A  vast  crowd  was  in  attendance  on  the  day  of 
trial  at  the  court-house  in  Vicksburg.  Judge  Montgom 
ery,  a  learned  and  able  functionary,  who,  I  am  glad  to 
know,  is  still  living,  presided  on  the  occasion.  I  was  aided 
in  the  defense  by  two  very  accomplished  gentlemen,  Mr. 
John  Gildart,  of  Woodville,  Miss.,  and  Mr.  Pelton,  then  a 
resident  of  Natchez,  now  a  wealthy  sugar  planter  of  Louis 
iana,  and  a  most  worthy  and  interesting  gentleman.  General 
Felix  Houston  and  several  other  attorneys  of  rank  co-op 
erated  with  Mr.  Prentiss  in  the  prosecution.  This  gen 
tleman  on  that  occasion  delivered  by  far  the  most  elo 
quent  and  effective  speech  I  ever  heard  at  the  bar.  Tt 
would  have  given  increased  fame  to  Erskine,  to  Mclntosh, 


CASKET  0#  REMINISCENCES.  43S 

or  to  Curran.  His  delineation  of  the  character  of  the  ac 
cused  was  most  masterly,  in  the  course  of  which  he  be 
stowed  upon  him  the  imperishable  cognomen  of  "  The 
Rob  Roy  of  the  Mississippi,"  in  allusion  to  his  habitually 
levying  "  black  mail  "  upon  the  travelers  whom  he,  from 
time  to  time,  encountered  on  the  highways  along  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  ;  hundreds  of  whom  he  had  rob 
bed,  arid  some  of  them  under  truly  romantic  and  ludicrous 
circumstances.  Phelps  had  been,  of  course,  relieved  from 
his  irons  before  being  brought  into  court  for  trial ;  but  it 
had  been  deemed  expedient  to  surround  him  with  an 
armed  guard.  His  appearance  on  the  occasion  was  very 
striking  and  impressive.  He  was  a  muscular,  well-shaped 
man,  about  five  feet  eleven  inches  in  height,  and  evidently 
possessed  of  great  physical  vigor  and  activity.  He  had 
a  particularly  fair  complexion,  a  good  deal  freckled  from 
constant  exposure  to  the  air.  His  hair  was  blood-red, 
was  much  inclined  to  curl,  and  his  crispy,  snake-like  locks 
stood  stiffly  up  over  and  about  his  cranium  with  a  singu 
larly  fierce  and  menacing  aspect.  His  keen,  gray  eyes 
exhibited  a  curious  blending  of  audacity  and  furtiveness. 
Prentiss'  speech  galled  and  irritated  him  greatly.  When 
the  inspired  orator  looked  round  upon  the  prisoner  with  a 
most  withering  glance  of  scorn  and  indignation,  Phelps,  in 
the  desperate  agony  of  the  moment,  stooped  and  whis 
pered  in  my  ear  the  following  terrific  words:  "  Tell  me 
whether  I  stand  any  chance  of  acquittal,  and  tell  me 
frankly ;  if  my  case  is  hopeless  I  will  snatch  a  gun 
from  the  guard  nearest  me  and  send  Mr.  Prentiss  to  hell 
before  I  shall  myself  go  there."  Never  was  I  so  much 
embarrassed  in  my  life.  I  saw  that  my  robbing  and  mur 
dering  client  was  in  dead  earnest.  I  did  not  doubt  that 
Mr.  Prentiss  was  at  this  moment  completely  in  his  power. 
If  he  should  slay  him  he  would  deprive  of  life  one  whom 
I  could  not  help  loving  and  admiring  much,  despite  the 
28  R 


434  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

unkind  relations  then  existing  between  us.  Were  Prcn- 
tiss  slain  by  the  hands  of  this  fiendish  ruffian  immedi 
ately  after  this  whispering  intercourse  with  me,  who  of 
all  that  crowd  would  hold  me  guiltless?  I  may  have 
done  wrong,  but  frankness  constrains  me  to  confess  that  I 
said  to  this  wretch,  "  You  are  not  in  the  least  danger ; 
we  will  make  a  motion  in  arrest  of  judgment  after  a 
while,  or  for  a  new  trial,  which  will  save  you  from  all 
further  annoyance.''  I'rcntiss  concluded  his  speech  ;  the 
jury  returned  a  prompt  verdict  of  "guilty,*'  and  Phelps 
was  remanded  to  his  cell,  there  to  await  the  execution  of 
the  sentence  passed  upon  him.  Meanwhile  I  was  again 
summoned  to  the  prison  to  aid  tins  man  in  the  prepara 
tion  of  his  confession,  a  document  afterward  published  as 
his  "Autobiography."  Before  the  writing  of  it  was  com 
pleted  T  had  to  leave  Yicksburg  for  one  of  the  courts  in 
the  interior  of  the  State.  T  left  on  the  table  where  I  had 
been  writing  a  leaden  inkstand  for  Phelps'  use,  out  of 
which  I  bad  been  myself  writing.  After  scribbling  some 
twenty  or  thirty  pages  of  manuscript  in  addition,  lie 
closed  by  the  declaration  that  he  did  not  intend  to  be 
hung;  that  he  bad  once  been  a  soldier,  and  he  intended 
to  die  the  death  of  a  soldier.  After  this  he  asked  that  a 
preacher  of  the  Gospel  should  be  sent  for  to  minister  to 
him  the  last  spiritual  consolation.  Rev.  Mr.  Marshall, 
theii,  as  now,  a  resident  of  Vicksburg,  was  sent  for  and 
came.  In  the  meantime  Phelps  had  prepared  himself  for 
the  performance  of  an  extraordinary  feat.  He  had  con 
trived  in  some  way  to  saw  the  manacles  which  bound  his 
hands  almost  in  two,  so  that  with  a  strong  effort  he  could 
burst  them  asunder.  lie  had  enveloped  the  leaden  ink 
stand  in  a  stocking,  and  stood  with  it  grasped  in  both 
hands  behind  the  door  when  Mr.  And  ing,  the  jailor, 
opened  it  and  conducted  in  Mr.  Marshall.  With  a  single 
blow  he  knocked  down  the  jailor.  Mr.  Marshall  had  time 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  435 

to  fly  into  another  room,  which  he  saw  open,  and  had  suf 
ficient  presence  of  mind  to  lock  himself  therein  securely. 
By  this  time  Phelps,  having  made  an  unsuccessful  effort 
to  disencumber  his  hands,  snatched  a  large  knife  from 
the  helt  of  Mr.  And  ing,  walked  out  of  the  door  of 
his  own  cell,  closing  the  door  behind  him,  and  ad 
vanced  to  the  outer  door  of  the  jail.  By  this  time  the 
alarm  had  been  given,  and  Mr.  Howard,  the  sheriff,  came 
to  the  jail  yard  with  a  number  of  attendants,  many  of 
whom  were  armed.  The  outer  door  was  forced  open,  by 
order  of  the  sheriff,  by  the  use  of  axes.  The  first  man 
that  entered  saw  blazing  before  his  face  the  uplifted  knife 
of  Mr.  Anding,  which  Phelps  held  firmly  in  both  of  his 
fettered  hands.  The  door-opener  recoiled,  and  Phelps 
marched  forth.  The  crowd  incontinently  gave  way  be 
fore  him.  He  strode  a  few  steps  toward  the  gate  of  the 
prison  yard.  The  sheriff  struck  him  a  severe  blow  over 
the  head  with  a  heavy  gun  which  he  held  in  his  hands, 
which  slightly  stunned  him.  lie  still  strode  forward,  got 
Avithout  the  gate,  and  was  rapidly  descending  the  hill  to 
ward  the  river,  when  brickbats,  sticks,  and  other  mis 
siles  were  hurled  at  him  in  ^reat  number.  One  of  the 

O 

brickbats  struck  him  in  the  small  of  the  back  and  seri 
ously  disabled  him.  Upon  this,  he  turned  suddenly  round 
to  the  sheriff,  who  was  pursuing  him  with  a  loaded  gun, 
and  demanded  death  at  his  hands.  He,  fired,  and  there 
was  an  end  to  the  earthly  career  of  "  The  Rob  Roy  of  the 
Mississippi." 

In  the  case  of  Mercer  Byrd,  already  mentioned,  Mr. 
Prentiss  was  employed  to  prosecute  by  Alexander  G. 
McNutt,  afterward  Governor  of  the  State.  His  fee  for 
prosecution  was  $4,000.  The  prisoner  was  charged  with 
being  accessory  after  the  fact  to  the  murder  of  a  Mr. 
Cameron,  McNutt's  copartner  in  a  cotton  plantation. 
Four  other  negroes  had  been  previously  charged  with  the 


43(5  CASKET   Otf 

commission  of  this  murder,  whom  I  had  myself'  prosecuted 
to  conviction,  at  the  instance  of  the  County  Court  of 
Warren  county.  Judge  Sharkey,  Judge  Coulter,  and 
myself  were  employed  to  defend  Byrd.  Twice  was  he 
convicted,  and  twice  did  he  get  his  sentence  reversed  by 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  A  third 
trial  now  occurred.  Byrd  had  now  to  meet  dangers  far 
greater  than  those  he  had  been  previously  compelled  to 
encounter.  Stewart's  famous  book  prognosticating  the 
general  insurrection  of  the  slaves  of  the  South  against 
their  owners  had  just  gained  circulation,  and  the  popular 
mind  in  Mississippi  was  in  a  state  of  excitement  difficult 
to  be  conceived  by  those  who  were  not  witnesses  thereof. 
It  may  be  well  conjectured  that  Mr.  Prentiss  made  the 
most  of  this  state  of  tilings.  Never  shall  I  forget  his  ter 
rible  delineation,  in  his  concluding  speech,  of  Mercer 
Byrd  on  horseback,  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  infuriated 
blacks,  burning,  slaying,  and  destroying  all  that  they 
encountered  in  their  fiery  and  desolating  career.  Mercer 
Byrd,  being  a  freeman  of  color, of  uncommon  intelligence 
and  of  most  commanding  aspect,  was  a  fine  subject  for 
the  display  of  Mr.  Prentiss'  rare  powers  of  delineation. 
The  jury  almost  convicted  him  in  the  box,  but  several  of 
them  often  told  me  afterward  that  they  deeply  regretted 
the  verdict,  for  they  then  thought  Byrd  innocent,  though 
Mr.  Prentiss'  irresistible  eloquence  had  driven  them  to 
the  verdict  which  had  taken  away  his  life. 

There  are  facts  connected  with  Mercer  Byrd  s  subse 
quent  confession  of  a  singularly  startling  and  distressful 
character,  which  I  may  notice  hereafter,  but  which,  for 
particular  reasons,  I  shall  not  mention  here. 

Of  Alexander  X.  ^Jcdiing  I  have  promised  to  give 
some  account.  He  was  born  in  my  own  native  county  of 
Fauquier,  in  Virginia,  but  was  reared  in  Kentucky.  He 
was  nephew  to  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  his  mother  being 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  437 

sister  to  that  eminent  personage.  I  never  met  with  Colo 
nel  McClung  until  some  time  in  the  autumn  of  1832.  He 
was  then  only  about  twenty-three  years  of  age,  was  ex 
ceedingly  good-looking,  and  of  most  modest  and  gentle 
manly  manners.  lie  was  said  to  have  inherited  a  hand 
some  patrimony,  but  to  have  pretty  well  gotten  through 
with  it  before  his  arrival  in  Mississippi.  He  had  been 
educated  for  the  navy,  and  had  been  on  several  interesting 
expeditions  as  a  midshipman  before  I  met  him  first.  He 
had  already  fought  several  duels,  information  of  which 
preceded  his  advent  to  the  State  of  Mississippi.  His  first 
affair  of  honor  was  with  a  brother  midshipman,  whom  I 
afterward  knew  well  as  Commodore  Hinton,  of  the  Texan 
navy.  This  duel  had  been  fought  on  the  coast  of  South 
America,  and  in  it  McClung  had  been  wounded  in  one 
of  his  arms.  His  second  affair  of  honor  was  with  a  first 
cousin  of  his,  a  young  Mr.  Marshall.  McClung  was  the 
challenged  party,  had  quietly  received  the  fire  of  his  ad 
versary,  and  had  then  fired  in  the  air,  after  which  the 
parties  had  been  reconciled.  He  reached  Mississippi  just 
before  my  second  fight  with  Mr.  Prentiss  occurred,  and 
he  acted  as  my  second.  This  affair  accidentally  brought 
him  into  collision  with  a  young  gentleman  of  about  the 
same  age,  known  as  General  Allen.  The  precise  particu 
lars  of  their  misunderstanding  I  never  knew  distinctly, 
and  if  I  did  I  shoulcj^not  here  detail  them,  These  young 
gentlemen  soon  after  became  bitter  foes.  Allen  passed 
one  morning  through  the  town  of  Clinton,  where  I  was 
then  residing,  declaring  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Jack 
son,  where  McClung  was  located,  in  order  to  bring  this 
gentleman  to  a  full  responsibility  for  all  the  grievances 
which  he  considered  himself  to  have  received  at  his  hands. 
Not  being  willing  to  have  one  to  whom  I  was  so  much 
indebted  taken  by  surprise,  I  mounted  on  horseback  and 
pushed  across  the  country  by  a  road  much  shorter  than 


438  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

the  one  commonly  traveled,  and  notified  McClung  of  the 
impending  danger.  The  parties  in  an  hour  or  two  met  on 
the  street-side,  both  thoroughly  armed,  and  after  discuss 
ing  the  matters  in  dispute  between  them  for  some  time  in 
a  very  tempestuous  manner  withdrew  to  their  respective 
boarding-houses.  I  had  hoped  that  this  painful  affair 
was  over,  and  became  engaged  in  some  urgent  professional 
business,  when  I  heard  that  a  duel  was  about  to  occur 
between  them  on  the  verge  of  the  town  of  a  very  despe 
rate  character.  The  parties  did,  in  point  of  fact,  meet 
about  sunset  that  evening  on  the  bank  of  Pearl  river,  in 
presence  of  a  numerous  concourse  of  citizens,  each  armed 
with  six  pistols.  They  were  stationed  by  the  seconds  at 
the  distance  of  sixty  yards  from  each  other ;  the  word  of 
command  was  given,  and  both  the  antagonists  advanced. 
Allen  moved  forward  rapidly,  exclaiming:  "  Now  we  will 
see  who  of  us  is  a  d — d  coward  !"  McClung,  after  having 
taken  a  single  step,  stopped,  saying  in  response,  with  great 
coolness:  "Yes,  we  shall  see."  At  the  same  time  he 
raised  his  pistol  and  fired.  At  the  distance  of  thirty 
paces  Allen  was  shot  through  the  mouth ;  several  of  the 
poor  fellow's  teeth  were  torn  away,  and  part  of  his  tongue 
amputated.  He  died  in  great  torture  a  few  hours  there 
after.  This  duel  should  never  have  been  allowed  to  occur. 
I  have  never  doubted  that  the  difficulty  between  these 
two  very  promising  and  brilliant  yojing  men  would  have 
proved  easy  of  adjustment  had  proper  and  seasonable  in 
terposition  occurred.  My  own  relations  with  the  parties 
were  unfortunately  such  as  to  disqualify  me  altogether 
for  the  part  of  a  peacemaker,  else  I  certainly  should  not 
have  been  slow  to  perform  this  duty.  I  had,  a  year  or 
two  before,  by  interfering  between  General  Allen  and  a 
particular  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  Philips,  been  able  to  suc 
ceed  in  preventing  a  fatal  meeting,  after  the  parties  had 


CASKET    OF    KEMINISCENCES.  439 

traveled  sixty  miles  for  the   purpose  of  shedding  each 
other's  blood  upon  a  mere  punctilio. 

Colonel  McClung  was  afterward  engaged  in  a  duel  with 
Mr.  Menifee,  which  terminated  fatally  to  the  latter.  Of 
this  affair  I  have  only  to  say  that  I  never  met  with  any 
one  who  supposed  that  Colonel  McClung  had  been  seri 
ously  to  blame. 

He  was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  and  had  doubtless  mas 
tered  the  legal  science  very  thoroughly,  but  he  had  never 
been  much  concerned  in  practice.  He  was  a  man  of  high 
literary  culture,  and  was,  perhaps,  the  ablest  and  most 
polished  writer  that  Mississippi  ever  contained.  About 
the  year  1844  he  established  a  newspaper  in  the  city 
of  Jackson,  called  The  True  Issue ,  the  numbers  of 
which  attracted  great  notice  at  the  time,  and  impressed 
all  who  read  them  with  the  fullest  conviction  as  to  the 
powers  and  attainments  of  the  author.  lie  explored  the 
questions  of  a  national  bank  and  a  protective  tariff  with 
a  display  of  originality  and  logical  power  which  greatly 
extended  his  fame.  In  illustration  of  the  merits  of  these 
productions  of  his  gifted  pen  I  may  be  permitted  to  relate 
a  rather  curious  anecdote.  Mr.  Prentiss  was  invited  to 
visit  the  Northern  States  in  the  summer'  of  that  year  for 
the  purpose  of  discussing  the  questions  involved  in  the 
Presidential  canvass.  He  accepted  the  invitation  thus 
extended,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  delivered  a 
series  of  harangues  which  brought  upon  him  much  and 
deserved  commendation.  Some  of  the  readers  of  the 
newspapers  about  Jackson  called  Colonel  McClung's  at 
tention  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Prentiss  had  incorporated  into 
his  addresses  considerable  portions  of  the  editorial  arti 
cles  which  had  previously  appeared  in  The  True  Issue, 
without  giving  to  that  paper  the  proper  credit  therefor. 
Colonel  McClung  felt  somewhat  aggrieved  by  this  conduct 
of  Mr.  Prentiss  (though  for  this  gentleman  he  certainly 


440  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

had  much  esteem  and  friendship)  and  he  determined  to 
hold  a  special  interview  with  him  on  the  subject.  This 
interview  afterward  took  place  at  the  celebrated  restaura 
teur  in  Jackson  known  as  "  Spangler's,"  where  the  follow 
ing  dialogue  substantially  occurred  : 

Mr.  McClung.  Mr.  Prentiss,  I  have  seen  that  you  had 
repeated  verbatim  in  the  speeches  recently  delivered  by 
you  in  the  North  copious  extracts  from  articles  previously 
emanating  from  my  pen,  and  without  giving  me  any  credit 
therefor.  Pray,  how  did  this  occur? 

Prentiss.  I  will  explain  with  the  greatest  pleasure.  I 
was  called  so  very  suddenly  to  the  North  that  I  had  no 
time  to  make  adequate  preparation  for  the  delivery  of 
the  speeches  claimed  from  me  by  our  party.  I  was  some 
what  embarrassed  about  the  matter ;  but  I  fortunately 
recollected  that  you,  my  excellent  and  accomplished  friend, 
had  written  upon  the  questions  upon  which  I  was  ex 
pected  to  descant  with  singular  power  and  eloquence ; 
and  knowing  your  devotion  to  the  Whig  cause,  and  your 
friendship  for  me  personally,  as  well  as  the  peculiar  gen 
erosity  of  your  nature,  I  had  no  hesitancy  about  appro 
priating  what  you  had  thus  so  ably  written  in  the  man 
ner  reported  to  you.  Had  I  known  where  to  find  matter 
better- than  that  which  you  had  thus  supplied  perhaps  I 
might  have  been  a  borrower  elsewhere.  Had  I  formally 
given  you  credit  at  the  time  for  what  I  was  so  effectively 
using,  I  should  have  incurred  the  risk  of  greatly  impair 
ing  the  influence  of  your  noble  utterances  and  of  dimin 
ishing  the  eclat  which  I  was  myself  acquiring  by  your 
help.  I  borrowed  ideas  from  you  freely  and  unceremoni 
ously,  just  as  I  should  expect  you  to  use  my  purse  at  any 
time  should  your  own  become  temporarily  exhausted. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  state  that  this  explanation 
was  most  satisfactory,  and  that  the  two  friends  were  only 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  441 

additionally    endeared   to   each    other   by  this  felicitous 
eclair  dssement. 

When  the  death  of  Mr.  Clay  occurred,  the  Legislature 
of  Mississippi  invited  Colonel  McClung  to  deliver  an  ora 
tion  at  the  State  Capitol  in  honor  of  the  illustrious  de 
parted.  This  oration  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing, 
and  I  afterward  read  it  with  attention,  and  more  than 
once.  It  is  perhaps  the  very  best  of  all  the  eulogies  de 
livered  about  this  time  upon  the  august  statesman  and  or 
ator  of  Kentucky,  and  our  Legislature  ordered  five  thou 
sand  copies  of  it  to  be  printed  for  distribution. 

Colonel  McClung  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the 
Mexican  War,  and  in  the  celebrated  charge  upon  the  fort 
at  Montel-ey  had  been  the  foremost  man,  thus  covering 
himself  with  immortal  honor.  He  was  lieutenant  colo- 
to  the  1st  Mississippi  regiment,  of  which  Jefferson  Davis 
was  full  col  oriel. 

When  certain  new  regiments  were  raised  during  the 
Administration  of  Mr.  Pierce  for  frontier  service  this  war. 
worn  veteran  had  hoped,  as  his  numerous  friends  had  also 
done,  that  he  would  receive  some  respectable  commission 
from  President  Pierce,  or  rather  from  the  Department  of 
War,  which  had  full  control  of  this  matter.  This  noble 
scion  of  a  noble  stock  was  very  much  reduced  in  his  pecu 
niary  circumstances  at  the  time,  and  had  been  repeatedly 
compelled  to  tax  the  generosity  of  his  friends  in  a  manner 
painfully  humiliating  to  his  own  proud  and  sensitive  feel 
ings.  For  some  weeks  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  his 
merits  and  sufferings  would  not  be  wholly  overlooked  by 
the  Administration.  But  he  had  taken  a  very  active  and 
zealous  part  against  secessionism  in  the  memorable  Missis 
sippi  campaign  of  1851,  and  it  appeared  in  the  sequel 
that  there  was  no  official  favor  in  store  for  him  in  Wash 
ington  city.  On  the  morning  that  his  last  spark  of  hope 
became  extinct,  this  noble-spirited  and  gifted  man  sought 


442  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

relief  from  all  the  cares  and  disappointments  of  life  in  sui 
cide  ! 

Karly  in  the  year  1836  the  lion.  Charles  Lynch  was  in 
augurated  Governor  of  Mississippi.  He  gave  a  levee  at 
his  office  to  his  fellow-citizens  generally.  Among  other 
guests,  the  celebrated  George  Poindexter  was  present.  Tie 
was  then  a  candidate  for  re-election  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  the  Democrats  of  the  Legislature  had  nomi 
nated  Rohert  J.  Walker  as  a  candidate  in  opposition  to 
him.  There  was  pretty  free  circulation  of  stimulating 
liquids  of  one  kind  or  another  at  Governor  Lynch's  party, 
and  Mr.  Poindexter  (a  thing  not  very  unusual  with  him 
in  those  days)  had  imbibed  very  freely.  At  the  instance 
of  some  of  his  admiring  friends  he  mounted  a  table  and 
delivered  a  furious  political  address,  in  which  General 
Jackson,  whom  he  mortally  hated,  was  most  unmercifully 
abused  and  ridiculed  in  connection  with  certain  official 
appointments  which  he  had  then  recently  made  in  flu1 
State  of  Mississippi,  including  that  of  Colonel  Samuel 
Guinn  to  the  position  of  register  of  public  lands,  at  the 
town  of  Clinton.  Guinn  chanced  to  be  present,  and,  upon 
the  impulse  of  the  niomont,  hissed  the  distinguished  ora 
tor.  This  greatly  excited  several  of  Mr.  Poindexter's 
friends,  and,  among  others,  Judge  Isaac  Caldwell,  a 
former  partner  of  Poindexter  in  the  practice  of  the  law. 
Much  unkind  language  was  interchanged  between  gentle 
men  on  either  side.  Guinn,  who  was  a  particular  friend  of 
mine,  and  one  whom  I  greatly  admired  and  loved,  sent  to 
Clinton  for  me  in  order  to  take  my  advice  as  to  what  was 
to  be  done  in  the  case.  E  advised  him  not  to  challenge 

o 

Caldwell,  but  to  leave  matters  as  they  were  for  the  pre 
sent.  The  election  for  United  States  Senator  came  off  the 
very  day  that  I  reached  Jackson,  and  Mr.  Walker  was 
elected.  This  result  embittered  Mr.  Poindexter  and  his 
friends  very  much.  The  day  after  this  defeat  a  challenge, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  443 

drawn  up  in  the  handwriting  of  Poindexter,  was  dis 
patched  by  Caldwell  to  Guinn.  He  accepted,  to  fight  next 
morning  at  daylight,  just  outside  the  limits  of  the  village. 
Guinn  selected  me  as  his  second.  We  proceeded  to  the 
ground  at  the  time  agreed  on,  and  found  the  adverse 
party  already  there  and  a  vast  concourse  of  citizens  in  at 
tendance.  All  the  neighboring  villages  had  poured  out 
the  tide  of  population  to  take  a  view  of  the  expected 
combat.  The  parties  were  each  of  them  armed  with  six 
pistols.  They  were,  upon  receiving  the  word,  to  move 
upon  each  other  and  tire  at  pleasure.  I  won  the  word, 
and  gave  it  in  the  usual  manner.  Never  did  I  see  more 
valor  displayed  than  by  these  combatants.  They  mutu 
ally  advanced,  firing,  exchanging  the  first  shot  without 
effect.  Cald well's  second  shot  took  effect  upon  Guin's  left 
breast.  He  braced  himself  immediately  in  the  most  com 
posed  and  majestic  manner  and  fired  a  third  time.  His 
third  ball  struck  Caldwell  in  the  very  center  of  the  abdo 
men.  Both  of  these  heroic  men  fell  to  the  ground  ;  their 
friends  gathered  around  them;  they  were  quickly  stripped 
of  their  upper  vestments,  and  each  of  them  seemed  to  be 
mortally  wounded.  Poor  Caldwell  died  that  very  day  ; 
Guinn  survived  for  a  twelvemonth,  but  was  never  after 
ward  a  sound  and  healthy  man. 

In  two  or  three  years  the  beautiful,  accomplished,  and 
opulent  widow  of  Caldwell  was  persuaded  to  marry  a  sec 
ond  time.  Her  second  husband  was  a  young  man  from 
New  York,  but  little  known  in  Mississippi.  In  about 
two  years  the  village  of  Clinton  was  violently  agitated  by 
reports  of  the  sudden  and  bloody  death  of  Mrs.  Caldwell, 
from  violence  in  her  own  house,  by  some  unknown  hand. 
Circumstances  existed  which  begot  painful  suspicions 
that  her  death  had  been  the  result  of  a  painful  and  sud 
den  dispute  between  herself  and  the  man  with  whom  she 
had  so  surprisingly  intermarried,  and  in  a  manner  most 


444  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

disgraceful  to  the  latter.  Colonel  Robertson,  her  ex 
cellent  brother-in-law,  a  man  of  the  most  elevated 
standing,  visited  me  one  morning  for  personal  con 
sultation  in  reference  to  these  melancholly  facts, 
and  wished  to  have  a  criminal  prosecution  instituted 
Before  this  was  positively  determined  on,  the  individual 
suspected  had  departed  the  vicinage,  no  longer  perhaps  to 
be  heard  of  on  this  side  of  the  grave.  Such  details  as 
these  might  well  nauseate  any  one  with  the  whole  busi 
ness  of  dueling. 

I  could  relate  several  more  such  scenes  almost  equally 
agonizing  ;  but  I  forbear. 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  445 


REMINISCENCE  No.  XL. 

ELOQUENCE — A  REMARKABLE  MAN — SKETCH  OF  JOHN  NEWLAND 
MAFFIT — AN  ELECTRIFYING  SPEAKER. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  men  in  several  respects 
that  I  have  ever  seen  was  the  Rev.  John  Newland  Maffit. 
I  met  him  first  in  the  year  1835.  Several  times  did  I 
hear  him  preach,  and  I  had  the  happiness  of  entertaining 
him  for  a  few  days  at  my  own  residence  in  the  town  of 
Clinton,  Mississippi.  He  has  been  at  different  times  the 
subject  of  much  praise,  and  it  was  not  his  fortune  alto 
gether  to  escape  decrial.  As  I  had  a  pretty  good  oppor 
tunity  of  learning  his  true  character,  and  of  estimating 
his  abilities,  I  propose  to  state  my  own  present  recollec 
tions  of  this  famous  individual. 

Mr.  Mafiit  was  an  Irishman  by  birth,  and,  as  I  suppose, 
could  by  no  means  boast  an  aristocratic  descent.  His 
early  education  had  been  very  limited,  and  nearly  all  that 
he  ever  knew  of  books  had  been  obtained  in  a  very 
irregular  manner.  I  do  not  suppose  that  he  had  ever  fully 
mastered  any  important  department  of  science.  He  was 
but  slightly  acquainted  with  any  language  but  that  which 
he  spoke ;  but  I  have  met  very  few  men  indeed  of  any 
profession  who  seemed  to  have  at  their  command  a  larger 
stock  of  pure  and  well-chosen  English  words  in  which  to 
express  their  thoughts  and  sentiments  in  an  impressive 
and  captivating  manner.  He  had  evidently  seen  much 
of  the  world,  and  was  very  familiar  with  the  usages  pre 
vailing  in  the  various  classes  of  our  population.  He  was 
of  rather  low  stature — not  being,  as  I  should  conjecture, 


446  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

more  than  live  feet  five  inches  in  height.  He  was  of  ad 
mirable  proportions  ;  his  movements  were  easy  and  grace 
ful,  and  ho  might  justly  have  been  called  a  handsome  man. 
lie  had  a  well-shaped  head  ;  a  smooth  and  commanding 
forehead ;  a  profuse  suit  of  coal-black,  glossy  hair ;  large 
and  lustrous  eyes;  a  handsome  nose,  mouth,  and  chin; 
and  his  countenance  was  one  of  the  most  bright  and 
attractive  I  ever  gazed  upon.  His  voice  was  naturally 
strong  and  full,  and  he  had  evidently  added  much  to 
its  power  by  the  most  diligent  and  persevering  culture. 
Some  of  its  tones  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  sweetest  and 
most  persuasive  I  had  ever  heard.  His  whole  manner 
was  in  fact  such  that  no  one  who  listened  to  him  for  a 
single  half  hour  could  be  at  all  inclined  afterward  to  crit 
icize  any  part  of  his  most  magical  and  soul-moving  de 
livery.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  listened  at  any  time 
to  a  public  speaker  who,  in  regard  to  everything  under 
stood  to  be  embraced  in  the  word  action,  at  all  equaled 
this  warm-hearted  and  impassioned  son  of  the  Emerald 
Isle.  I  have  known  him  to  produce  such  effects  upon 
large  and  intelligent  audiences  as  I  have  never  seen 
awakened  by  any  other  public  speaker.  There  was  a 
mystery  about  his  rhetorical  utterances  that  I  was  never 
able  fully  to  comprehend,  though  so  often  exposed  to 
their  influence.  Whilst  speaking  he  really  seemed  to 
exert  a  sort  of  electrical  power  which  it  was  almost  im 
possible  to  resist,  and  yet  must  it  be  confessed  that  I 
never  heard  from  him  a  single  discourse  which  was  either 
very  instructive  or  which  left  behind  it  useful  and  per 
manent  impressions  of  any  kind  whatever.  His  printed 
*  sermons  were  singularly  cold  and  unimpressive,  and  it 
would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  single  sentence  in  any 
of  them  upon  which  a  person  of  refined  and  discrimin 
ating  taste  would  have  been  disposed  to  lavish  commend 
ation  on  account  either  of  the  weight  and  value  of  the 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  447 

thoughts  embodied  therein,  or  the  unusual  beauty  and 
polish  of  the  diction  employed.  I  have  been  long  satisfied 
that  Mr.  Maffit  possessed  histrionic  talents  which  would 
have  won  for  him  the  most  imperishable  renown  upon  the 
stage,  and  I  could  not  be  easily  persuaded  that  I  have 
ever  met  a  public  speaker  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic 
who  was  so  thoroughly  versed  in  all  that  appertains  to  the 
human  voice  as  the  grand  instrument  of  persuasion.  I 
have  frequently  said,  in  former  years,  what  I  now  repeat, 
that,  in  my  opinion,  could  he  have  been  induced  to  deliver 
a  course  of  lectures  on  elocution,  accompanied  with  such 
practical  illustrations  as  he  would  have  found  it  easy  to 
supply,  the  younger  speakers  of  the  country  might  have 
greatly  profited  by  listening  to  them. 

Mr.  Maffit  was  a  man  of  very  brilliant  colloquial  pow 
ers.  He  was  exceedingly  kind  and  affable  in  social  life, 
and,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  judge,  he  was  altogether  free 
from  envy  and  personal  malevolence.  Many  spoke  of  him 
in  terms  of  decrial  and  ridicule  who  really  knew  but  little 
either  of  his  real  character  or  history ;  and  there  were 
some  circumstances  with  which  he  was  fated  to  come  into 
contact  which  should  claim  for  him  a  most  liberal  allow 
ance  in  regard  to  certain  weaknesses  and  indiscretions  which 
have  been  so  freely  imputed  to  him.  His  heart  was  warm 
and  generous,  his  personal  attachments  were  strong  and 
lasting,  and  he  ever  cherished  an  ardent  admiration  for 
all  that  was  lofty  and  heroic  either  in  sentiment  or  in 
action.  Tie  was  intensely  devoted  to  his  calling,  and  wras 
doubtless  as  accessible  as  even  Cicero  himself  to  the  voice 
of  adulation.  While  he  was  electrifying  multitudes  by 
his  inspiring  eloquence,  it  is  certain  that  he  sometimes 
forgot  the  rules  of  moderation  and  forbearance,  and  grew 
impatient  when  artificial  impediments  of  any  kind  were 
thrown  in  the  way  of  his  all-conquering  powers  of  persua 
sion,  and  that  he  was  sometimes  provoked  both  to  com- 


448  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

plain  and  denounce  aggressors  upon  his  domain  in  lan 
guage  neither  politic  nor  becoming.  In  illustration  of 
the  correctness  of  what  has  just  been  said  I  will  here  men 
tion  an  occurrence  to  which  general  publicity  has  not,  I 
think,  heretofore  been  given. 

In  the  summer  of  1836  I  chanced  to  visit  the  town  of 
Tuscumbia,  in  the  Tennessee  valley,  where  I  had  at  one 
time  resided,  and  where  I  was  still  very  well  known.  I 
found  that  Mr.  Matftt  had  been  there  for  several  weeks, 
and  that  his  extraordinary  potentiality  as  a  religious  re 
vivalist  had  been  •  put  in  exercise  in  a  truly  wonderful 
manner.  Day  after  day  and  night  after  night  he  had  been 
preaching  to  large  and  enraptured  audiences  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  the  interesting  work  in  which  he  was  so 
earnestly  engaged  was  every  moment  deepening.  Just  at 
this  time  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  vicinage  made  ar 
rangements  for  a  large  and  fashionable  ball  at  one  of  the 
hotels  of  the  town,  of  which  due  notice  was  given  through 
all  customary  channels  of  communication.  As  the  night 
for  the  corning  off  of  this  festive  scene  approached  it  was 
observed  that  Mr.  Maftit  began  to  exhibit  striking  signs 
of  discontent,  lie  went  so  far  at  length  as  openly  to  com 
plain  that  this  ball  was  intended  to  interfere  with  his 
protracted  meeting,  and  he  used  on  one  occasion  language 
of  a  most  cutting  and  disparaging  character  in  reference 
to  those  with  whom  a  scheme  of  sinful  enjoyment,  so  well 
calculated  to  operate  as  an  impediment  to  his  labors,  had 
originated.  The  insulting  terms  employed  by  him  in 
reprehension  of  the  persons  referred  to  were  doubtless 
armed  with  special  force  and  severity  by  his  peculiar 
manner  of  enunciating  them.  It  was  hardly  to  have  been 
expected  that  the  worldlings  of  the  vicinage  would  be 
altogether  patient  under  this  sort  of  assailment.  In  point 
of  fact  Mr.  Maffit  soon  found  that  he  had  awakened  a 
social  combustion  in  Tuscumbia  not  at  all  likely  to  end 


CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES.  449 

in  mere  retaliatory  invective.  Very  insulting  and  crimi 
nating  handbills  were  posted  up  in  every  part  of  the  town, 
in  which  Mr.  Maffit's  character  and  alleged  previous  his 
tory  were  most  mercilessly  dealt  with.  Caricatures  of  an 
exceedingly  ingenious  and  suggestive  nature  were  like 
wise  sent  forth,  such,  in  truth,  as  I  dare  not  describe  here. 
Formal  notice,  too,  was  given  to  Mr.  Maffit  that  if  he 
presumed  again  to  preach  in  that  settlement,  certain  spe 
cified  personal  indignities  of  an  unnamable  kind  would 
be  inflicted  upon  his  person.  He  still  continued  to  hold 
forth  to  large  audiences.  At  length  warning  was  given 
him  that  if  he  spoke  again  in  the  church  where  he  had 
previously  ministered  even  his  life  would  be  taken.  That 
this  was  a  serious  menace,  and  one  likely  to  be  executed, 
is  sufficiently  attested  by  the  fact  that  a  carriage  which 

was  proceeding  from  Tuscumbia  one  evening  to  the  house 
i  ^  ~ 

of  some  hospitable  gentleman  in  the  country,  and  in  which 
it  was  supposed  Mr.  Maffit  was  riding,  was  forcibly  broken 
open  by  a  masked  and  armed  crowed,  this  gentleman  hav 
ing  evidently  escaped  the  fate  intended  for  him  by  de 
clining  to  ride  in  the  carriage  in  question,  which  he  did 
alone  in  consequence  of  his  having  been  fortunately  ap 
prized  of  the  scheme  of  violence  which  had  been  projected 
in  time  to  save  his  life,  or  at  least  to  avoid  insulting  treat 
ment  of  the  most  extreme  character.  So  intense  and  gen 
eral  was  the  excitement  then  raging  that  pious  members 
of  the  Church,  of  both  sexes,  went  often  to  the  place  of 
worship  armed  with  pistols  and  daggers  for  the  protection 
alike  of  their  loved  minister  and  for  the  vindication  of 
their  own  religious  rights.  It  was  precisely  at  this  criti 
cal  period  of  the  affair  that  a  committee  of  Methodist 
gentlemen  very  unexpectedly  visited  me  for  the  purpose 
of  asking  my  advice  in  regard  to  the  course  proper  to  be 
pursued  in  order  to  avoid  the  collision  then  apprehended. 
These  gentlemen  placed  before  me  all  th&facts  just  related, 
29  R 


450  CASKET  OP  REMINISCENCES. 

and  requested  me  to  accompany  them  to  the  Female  Acad 
emy,  where  Mr.  Maffit  was  then  being  hospitably  enter 
tained,  for  the  purpose  of  conferring  with  this  gentleman 
in  person  as  to  the  steps  proper  to  be  taken  in  his  behalf. 
I  at  once  complied  with  their  desire;  and  I  did  so  the 
more  readily  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  I  knew  Mr.  Maftit 
to  be  at  the  time  a  valued  citizen  of  the  State  of  Missis 
sippi,  and  also  the  editor  of  a  most  interesting  and  useful 
newspaper  then  published  in  the  city  of  Natchez.  When 
we  reached  the  academy  a  full  and  frank  consultation  was 
immediately  had.  the  result  of  which  was  an  arrangement 
that  I  should  proceed  to  the  Methodist  church  that  very 
evening,  and  that,  on  being  formally  invited  to  address 
the  assembled  multitude  in  vindication  of  my  Mississippi 
friend,  T  should  ascend  the  pulpit  for  that  purpose,  and 
do  what  I  could  to  assuage  the  fearful  commotion  then  in 
progress.  Perhaps  I  should  here  state  that  I  could  not 
but  know  that  my  interposition  had  not  been  sought  be 
cause  of  any  opinion  formed  that  I  would  be  able  to  bring 
on  this  occasion  any  powers  of  persuasion  of  an  extraor 
dinary  character,  but  simply  because  of  the  fact  that  1 
had  been,  as  heretofore  mentioned,  the  editor  of  a  some 
what  popular  newspaper  in  Tuscumbia  several  years  ante 
cedent,  and  was  therefore  given  credit  for  more  intluence 
over  the  younger  members  of  society  in  the  vicinage  than 
I  should  ever  have  thought  of  claiming  to  possess. 

At  the  time  specih'ed  I  made  my  appearance  at  the 
church,  according  to  arrangement,  where  I  found  Mr. 
Maftitt  had  already  arrived.  He  had  come  to  the  place 
of  trial  in  company  with  Mr.  Robinson,  the  minister  who 
ordinarily  officiated  there,  with  whom  he  was  then  seated 
in  the  pulpit.  A  profound  stillness  prevailed.  Presently 
Mr.  Robinson  rose  and  announced  to  the  audience  that  an 
old  acquaintance  and  friend  of  theirs  from  the  State  of 
Mississippi  was  then  present,  (mentioning  my  name,)  who, 


OF  REMINISCENCES.  451 

with  their  consent,  would  address  them  very  briefly. 
After  waiting  a  little  while,  in  order  to  find  out  how  this 
proposition  was  received  by  the  -crowd  in  attendance- 
having  been  invited  a  second  time  to  come  into  the  pul 
pit — I  did  so,  and  proceeded  at  once  in  the  kindest  and 
most  conciliatory  manner  at  my  command  to  perform  the 
task  allotted  to  me.  I  am  certain  that  what  I  said  would 
have  failed  to  effect  the  pacification  desired  had  I  not,  in 
the  outset,  declared  that  Mr.  Maffit  had  expressly  commis 
sioned  me  to  declare  the  deep  regret  which  he  felt  at  what 
had  heretofore  occurred  ;  and,  also,  in  his  name,  formally  to 
withdraw  all  the  offensive  language  theretofore  uttered 
by  him.  I  need  hardly  say  that,  in  my  short  address,  I 
explained  as  well  as  I  could  Mr.  Maffit's  merits  as  a  citi 
zen,  and  extolled,  according  to  my  opinion  of  his  deserts, 
both  his  extraordinary  powers  as  a  public  speaker  and  his 
great  usefulness  as  a  minister  of  the  church  with  which 
he  was  associated,  as  well  as  to  the  community  in  general, 
as  an  efficient  and  indefatigable  champion  and  advocate 
of  the  great  and  sacred  cause  of  Christian  reform.  Never 
in  my  life  was  I  treated  more  kindly  and  respectfully 
than  by  that  very  numerous  concourse  of  gentlemen  and 
ladies.  When  my  frank  and  unpretending  remarks  had 
been  drawn  to  a  close,  Mr.  Maffit  rose  up  with  a  most 
modest  and  subdued  aspect,  and,  after  having  uttered 
several  sentences  of  a  singularly  kind  and  propitiatory 
character,  delivered  a  discourse  of  about  an  hour's  length, 
which  in  point  of  graceful  and  soul-stirring  eloquence  was 
equal  to  any  oratorical  effort  I  have  at  any  time  wit 
nessed.  The  conflict  which  had  been  so  tempestuously 
raging  for  more  than  a  week  was  now  at  an  end.  80 
soon  as  the  audience  was  dismissed  a  new  scene  had  to 
be  encountered  :  a  committee  came  to  invite  me  to  accom 
pany  Mr.  Maffit  to  the  Female  Academy,  where,  as  was 
made  known  to  us,  a  large  concourse  of  the  gentler  sex 


452 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 


would  be  found  assembled,  who  desired  to  express  their 
gratitude  to  me  for  the  manner  in  which  I  had  aided  in 
the  prevention  of  social  violence,  and  in  the  restoration 
of  general  amicable  feeling.     On  reaching  the  Academy 
beheld  a  spectacle  which  I  shall  ever  bear  in  pleasant, 
recollection.     A  very  large  number  of  beautiful  and  well- 
dressed  ladies,  all  dressed  in  white  vestments,  presented 
themselves  by  the  clear  light   of  the   unclouded   moon 
bearing  flowers  in  their  hands,  which  might  well  have 
been  mistaken  for  branches  of  palm.    One  of  their  number 
accosted  me  and  poured  forth  one  of  the  most  o-lowino- 
and   beautiful   addresses  possible  to  be  conceived  of  in 
which  I  was  more  than  once  referred  to  in   lamniao-e  Of 
kind  commendation  which  I  was  far  from  feelin*  that  I 
deserved,  but  which  was  perhaps  none  the  less  welcome 
>  me  on  that  account.     After  this  Mr.  Maffit  and  myself 
were  conducted  into   the  house,  where  we  found  a  rich 
banquet  spread,  such  as  even  the  lords  and  princes  of  the 
earth  might  have  been  glad  to  partake  of.     On  the  next 
|lay  I  took  leave  of  Mr.  Maffit,  and  returned  to  mv  own 
ome  in  Mississippi,  after  which  I  never  had  the  pleasure 
t  meeting  him  ;  for  in  a  few  years  from  this  remarkable 
occurrence  the  brilliant  and  gifted  rhetorician,  the  genial 
I  kind-hearted  gentleman,  the  far  famed  religious  revi- 
st,  ceased   to  tread   that  -green  earth"  to  which  I 
have  often  heard  him  allude  in  words  of  ecstatic  affection 
but  upon  whose  surface  there  is  much   reason  to  fear  he 
spent  but  few  days  of  unalloyed  and  serene  happiness 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  453 


REMINISCENCE   No.  XLI. 

CJ5SARISM — GENERAL    GRANT SENSATIONAL    NEWSPAPER    AR 
TICLES. 

This  Reminiscent  will  close  the  series  of  numbers  writ 
ten  for  the  Chronicle — for  the  purpose  alone  of  contribut 
ing  so  far  as  it  may  lay  in  his  power  to  do  so,  to  the  pres 
ent  pacification  of  our  country,  and  to  a  revival  of  for 
mer  fraternal  sentiments  among  our  people  of  all  classes 
and  sections — by  submitting  his  own  deliberate  views  up 
on  the  subject  of  "Csesarism,"  now  so  vehemently  agitated 
in  certain  sensational  journals  of  a  very  extended  circula 
tion.  Though  I  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  be  serious  in 
regard  to  a  matter  so  egregiously  fantastical  in  all  its 
bearings,  yet  as  I  have  been  requested  in  several  highly 
respectable  quarters  to  present  such  views  as  I  chance  to 
entertain  touching  the  dangers  that  some  are  nows  affect 
ing  to  descry  in  the  political  firmament  I  do  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  be  silent.  What  I  have  to  say  at  this  time  upon 
the  topic  alluded  to  will  be  found,  I  flatter  myself,  in 
complete  harmony  with  all  that  has  heretofore  emanated 
from  me  since  the  Reminiscences,  now  to  be  suspended  for 
a  time,  were  commenced,  several  weeks  ago. 

Did  I  entertain  the  dismal  apprehensions  to  which  a 
certain  class  of  political  writers  have  of  late  given  such 
free  expression,  I  should  be  indeed  one  of  the  most  un 
happy  of  men.  I  have  ever  loved  liberty  with  an  earnest 
ness  of  affection  which  no  man  can  adequately  set  forth 
in  words  ;  and  I  have  always  admired  our  peculiar  form 
of  government,  almost  to  the  point  of  idolatry.  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  avow  the  opinion,  which  I  do  most  de- 


454  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

voutly  entertain,  that  the  political  experiment  which  we 
are  making  iif  this  country  originated  under  the  direct 
inspiration  of  that  Divine  Being  from  whom  all  good 
things  emanate,  and  that  its  solution  has  been  thus  far 
conducted  under  His  all-wise  and  all-benevolent  guidance. 
I  have  ever  thought,  and  think  at  this  moment,  if  possi 
ble,  more  strongly  than  I  ever  heretofore  have  done, 
that  the  hopes  of  liberty  throughout  the  world  depend, 
in  a  great  degree,  upon  our  example  and  the  degree  of 
success  which  may  seem  to  accompany  it,  as  well  as  upon 
the  sage  and  active  fidelity  of  our  counsels  to  others,  not 
so  happily  situated  as  ourselves,  touching  the  means  proper 
to  be  used  for  the  attainment  of  a  true  and  orderly  liberty, 
and  for  its  steady  and  durable  maintenance  after  it  shall 
have  been  once  acquired.  Not  the  smallest  doubt  does 
my  mind  feel  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
is  by  far  the  wisest  and  most  securely  guarded  compact 
of  government  that  the  human  intellect  has  ever  been 
able  to  frame ;  and  I  do  devoutly  believe  that  the  recent 
amendments  of  that  instrument  have  greatly  added  to  its 
value  and  strengthened  its  claims  to  our  affectionate  re 
gard.  The  more  often  I  compare  our  civil  institutions 
with  those  existing  elsewhere  the  more  fully  am  I  con 
firmed  in  the  favorable  opinion  I  have  always  cherished 
of  that  government  under  which  we  live.  Every  time  I 
have  read  over  anew  the  debates  which  occurred  in  the 
Federal  Convention  while  the  Constitution  was  gradually 
assuming  that  beautiful  organic  form  which  it  still  so 
happily  preserves,  my  gratitude  to  the  wise  and  patriotic 
statesmen  who  flourished  in  that  golden  period  of  our 
history  has  been  freshly  warmed  up  and  solidified.  When 
I  reperuse  the  immortal  numbers  of  the  Federalist,  which 
I  never  fail  to  do  at  least  once  while  our  planet  is  moving 
through  its  orbit  around  the  great  source  and  center  of 
heat  and  light,  my  swelling  bosom  never  fails  to  confess, 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  455 

with  a  deep-drawn,  but  self-gratulating  sigh,  its  intense, 
but  speechless  thankfulness  to  Him  who  sent  on  earth 
three  such  men  us  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Jay  to  ex 
pound  its  provisions  and  fix  the  interpretation  of  its  vague 
or  doubtful  clauses. 

The  well-known  articles  of  confederation  proposed  to 
establish  a  "perpetual  union"  between  these  States;  the 
Constitution,  afterward  accepted  in  lieu  of  these  articles, 
asserts  for  itself  that  it  has  made  this  Union  a  "  more  per 
fect  "  one.  Now,  if,  after  all,  the  frame-work  of  our 
boasted  Government  shall  turn  out  not  to  have  been  so 
providently  constructed  as  to  secure  the  continuance  of  its 
own  vitality  for  even  a  single  century,  then,  indeed,  will 
it  appear  that  our  venerated  forefathers  have  failed  to  at 
tain  one  of  the  prime  objects  of  their  exertions,  and  the 
glories  which  have  seemed  heretofore  to  emblazon  their 
temples  must  fade  away  into  the  dimness  of  nothingness. 

In  regard  to  the  amendments  recently  engrafted  upon 
the  Constitution  I  will  here  say,  in  addition  to  what  I 
have  heretofore  said  on  this  subject,  that  the  effect  of 
adopting  them  (which  has  been,  in  the  estimation  of  some, 
to  weaken  the  bond  of  our  political  alliance)  has  been  ex 
actly  the  opposite.  I  have  been  long  of  opinion  that  all 
three  of  these  same  amendments  were  wisely  and  season 
ably  superadded,  and  that  they  are  all  of  them  just  such 
emendations,  both  in  form  and  in  substance,  as  the  origi 
nal  draftsmen  of  the  instrument  would  themselves  have 
incorporated  therein  had  they  foreseen  eighty-four  years 
ago  the  grave  and  perilous  conjunctures  through  which 
their  descendants  of  the  generation  now  passing  away  have 
been  compelled  to  pass.  My  own  warm  approval  of  all 
these  amendments  was  publicly  avowed  in  writing  in  the 
city  of  Nashville,  full  two  years  before  the  celebrated 
"  New  Departure  "of  Mr.  Vallandigham  beamed  upon 
the  country ;  and  since  that  period  I  have  never  had  the 


456  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

least  reason  to  regret  the  assumption  thus  early  of  the 
only  position  which,  in  my  opinion,  can  he  held  in  har 
mony  with  the  general  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  Re- 
puhlic.  So  far  am  I  from  supposing  that  the  late  amend 
ments  have  enfeebled  the  vinculum  of  the  Constitution,  or 
diminished  the  chances  of  its  extended  duration,  that  it 
really  seems  to  my  mind  to  be  quite  manifest  that  they 
were  absolutely  needed  at  the  moment  of  their  adoption 
as  buttresses  to  the  governmental  fabric  to  which  they 
were  then  annexed.  .  We  are  all  much  in  the  habit  of 
prayerfully  uttering  in  regard  to  our  unequaled  institu 
tions  an  exclamation  which  has  now  become  a  little  trite: 
Esto  perpetua  !  Yet  I  suppose  no  one  has  supposed  that 
even  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  destined 
to  last  as  long  as  the  planet  itself  which  we  inhabit ;  but 
it  would  be  indeed  a  most  cruel  disappointment  of  appa 
rently  well-founded  hopes  to  see  Cajsarism,  as  it  has  been 
called,  triumphing  over  it  almost  before  all  the  sages  who 
united  in  giving  it  form  and  consistence  had  passed  from 
the  stage  of  earthly  existence ;  yea,  even  at  the  very  mo 
ment  when  all  the  strugglers  for  freedom  throughout  the 
world  are  recognizing  its  wisdom  and  priceless  value. 

So  much  for  the  Constitution  itself  and  the  chances  of 
its  permanent  endurance.  There  are  one  or  two  circum 
stances  which  have  of  late  much  increased  my  confidence 
in  the  long  continuance  of  our  present  form  of  government 
and  that  union  of  States  upon  which  it  was  primarily 
based.  I  will  briefly  state  a  few  of  these.  The  long- 
menaced  experiment  of  secession  has  been  at  last  formally 
tested  in  practice.  This  experiment  has  undeniably 
proved  a  signal  and  even  a  ridiculous  failure,  despite  all 
the  heroic  blood  poured  forth  so  generously  in  homage  of 
what  was  to  prove  at  last  a  fanciful  and  contemptible 
iynus  falaus.  The  Federal  Government,  without  any  un 
authorized  or  very  dangerous  expansion  of  its  own  legiti- 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  457 

mate  powers,  has  proved  itself  in  the  last  thirteen  years 
capable  not  only  of  defending  its  own  existence  against 
all  the  attacks  of  insurrectionary  violence,  but  has  also 
been  eventually  able  to  subject  to  deserved  punishment 
the  most  powerful  government  beyond  the  ocean  for  dar 
ing  openly  to  countenance  the  efforts  made  for  its  over 
throw.  This  double  victory  is  eminently  calculated  to 
discourage  similar  attempts  to  disrupt  the  Federal  Union 
in  future,  and  to  impart  to  the  true  friends  of  the  repub 
lican  principle  everywhere  increased  confidence  in  the 
durability  of  our  particular  scheme  of  government.  The 
absurd  and  utterly  untenable  dogma  of  secession  has  be 
come  at  last  "  a  sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling  symbol." 
Its  sulphuro-phosphorescent  upholders  may  be  now  safely 
allowed  to  expound  in  whatever  lofty  and  high-sounding 
phraseology  their  own  tastes  may  approve  the  superhu 
man  glories  which  they  may  fancy  to  have  marked  its 
descent  below  the  horizon  of  practical  existence,  to  such 
infatuated  men  and  women  as  may  still  cling  with  fool 
ish  pertinacity  to  the  rotten  and  decaying  fragments  of 
their  vainly  cherished  idol. 

It  is  an  equally  encouraging  consideration  that  the 
brief  and  troublesome  career  of  the  so-called  Southern 
Confederacy  has  triumphantly  demonstrated  the  truth  of 
the  following  propositions:  That  secession  in  the  United 
States,  if  ever  it  shall  be  anywhere  apparently  successful 
for  a  time,  will  ever  be  found  in  the  end  have  held  in  to 
its  bosom  the  seeds  of  self-destruction  ;  for  no  \)ne  can 
now  doubt  that  wherever  a  half  dozen  or  more  of  the 
States  of  which  the  Republic  is  composed  shall  have  suc 
ceeded,  by  whatever  mode,  in  placing  themselves  beyond 
the  controlling  authority  of  the  Federal  Union,  they  will 
not  be  many  months  in  getting  up  a  squabble  among  them 
selves  for  ascendency,  or  fall  into  bitter  conflict  upon 
some  question  of  local  interest ;  and  when  that. shall  have 


458  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

occurred,  the  brilliant  example  of  setting  up  a  separate 
national  flag  already  consummated  in  their  sight  will  he 
assuredly  imitated.  Either  the  non-coercive  theory  of 
Mr.  Buchanan  will  be  applied,  or  the  opposite  one;  in 
either  of  which  events  no  result  is  likely  to  be  achieved 
over  which  a  reasonable  mind  would  be  inclined  to  rejoice. 
But  experience  has  shown,  in  multiplied  instances,  the 
probability  that  whenever  a  line  shall  be  drawn,  in  any 
direction,  over  the  territorial  surface  of  -n  country  once 
composing  a  single  nation,  border  wars  will  be  SUIT  1<> 
ensue.  Border  wars  will  of  necessity  bring  about  the 
creation  of  standing  armies,  and  standing  armies  of  any 
considerable  strength  are  sure  to  eventuate  in  the  down 
fall  of  republican  institutions. 

I  now  confidently  assert  that  there  has  never  been  a 
time  in  the  history  of  this  Republic  when  the  great  body 
of  the  American  people,  North  and  South,  East  and  West, 
were  more  firmly  and  inseparably  attached  to  the  free  in 
stitutions  under  which  we  are  living  than  at  present.  I 
shall  venture  on  an  additional  assertion,  the  truth  of 
which  I  am  sure  that  a  grave  and  dispassionate  examina 
tion  will  not  fail  to  impress  upon  any  sound  and  well  con 
stituted  mind  ;  and  that  is,  that  at  no  former  period  of 
our  history,  not  even  during  the  administrations  of  Wash 
ington  and  Jackson,  were  the  Constitution  and  laws  of 
the  land  more  firmly  and  successfully  maintained  and  en 
forced  than  at  the  present  moment.  Never  was  more  of 
moderation  and  forbearance  put  in  exercise  by  the  Execu 
tive  Department  of  the  Government  than  we  are  daily 
and  hourly  witnessing.  Never  were  the  blessings  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty  more  fully  enjoyed  by  all  classes  of 
our  people.  At  no  former  time  have  more  multiplied 
evidences  been  furnished  in  all  parts  of  this  extended 
country  of  a  pure  and  exalted  love  of  liberty,  and  of  a  de 
termination  to  maintain  our  republican  form  of  govern 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  459 

merit  against  everjr  influence  which  might  be  brought 
into  conflict  with  it.  Never  was  there,  save  in  a  few  well- 
known  localities,  more  of  social  and  individual  virtue,  and 
of  all  those  things  which  experience  has  shown  most  to 
aid  in  the  maintenance  of  a  healthful  public  spirit,  and  to 
keep  alive  a  sage  and  wholesome  watchfulness  over  those 
intrusted  with  power.  In  the  extended  rural  districts  of 
our  country  this  happy  state  of  things  is  well  known  to 
prevail  to  an  eltfent  almost  unprecedented. 

l^ever,  I  am  sure,  were  our  people  less  inclined  to  wel 
come  the  establishment  among  them  of  anything  in  the 
form  of  an  imperial  despotism.  The  institutions  of  free 
dom  have  been  additionally  endeared  to  millions  of  heroic 
hearts  by  the  precious  blood  of  late  so  lavishly  poured 
forth  in  their  defense.  I  do  not  believe  that  there  are  ten 
thousand  men  anywhere  to  be  found  on  the  surface  of  our 
country  who  would  be  willing  to  yield  up  our  present 
form  of  government  for  any  other  whatever.  We  have 
facilities  for  the  maintenance  of  free  institutions  such  as 
the  ancients  never  conjectured  of,  and  of  which  our  hon 
ored  forefathers  themselves  could  have  had  but  an  imper 
fect  conception.  Behold  our  representative  form  of  gov 
ernment  1  Our  partition  of  all  governmental  power  among 
three  distinct  yet  co-ordinate  departments  ;  our  distribu 
tion  of  the  law-making  power,  between  two  legislative 
branches  of  coequal  dignity  and  power,  operating  con 
stantly  as  checks  and  counter-checks  upon  each  other  ; 
our  numerous  local  governments,  all  of  them  complete  in 
their  machinery,  and  of  an  organization  similar  in  certain 
essential  features,  alike  to  each  other  and  to  that  govern 
mental  establishment  at  the  grand  center  of  political  at 
traction  ;  our  wide-spread  and  constantly  expanding  edu 
cational  institutions,  carrying  the  lights  of  learning  and 
refinement  to  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  nation  ;  our 
admirably  organized  judicial  system,  so  wisely  yet  so  en- 


460  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

ergetically  administered,  except  perhaps  in  a,  few  isolated 
instances,  all  over  the  land  ;  the  inestimable  trial  by  jury  ; 
the  habeas  corpus  ;  the  newspaper  press ;  the  telegram  ; 
railroads  ;  steamboats  ;  the  public  mail,  andall  theother  fa 
cilities  for  interchanging  ideas  ;  for  multiply  ing  knowledge 
of  every  kind  ;  for  concentrating  at  any  given  point,  in  a 
few  hours  or  days  at  most,  the  means  of  defense  against 
all  attempts  of  whatever  kind  to  assail  freedom  or  to  vio 
late  the  essential  rights  of  the  citizen  !  ^Who  can  take 
even  the  most  superficial  and  cursory  survey  of  these 
things  without  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  the  people 
of  our  own  much-favored  land  and  country  do  indeed  possess 
such  a  capacity  for  self-government  as  never  was  possessed 
before  by  any  people  that  the  sun  of  heaven  has  yet  shone 
upon  ? 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  late  most  deplorable  civil 
war  did  leave  behind  it,  in  various  forms,  and  in  various 
localities,  a  good  deal  of  demoralization  and  crime.  This, 
though,  is  the  well-known  result  of  all  wars  and  especially 
of  all  civil  wars.  The  same  demoralization,  and  from  the 
operation  of  precisely  the  same  causes,  has  been  often  ex 
perienced  in  England  in  the  course  of  her  bloody  and  ex 
hausting  wars  upon  her  own  soil  between  hostile  factions 
of  English  people.  Other  countries  could  be  likewise 
cited,  but  it  is  not  necessary. 

There  is,  in  my  opinion,  not  the  least  analogy  between 
the  condition  of  the  Roman  people  in  the  days  of  either 
the  first  or  second  Caesar  and  that  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  at  the  present  moment,  and  no  inferences 
drawn  from  this  remote  source  can  be  made  at  all  availa 
ble  for  the  elucidation  of  the  probable  future  of  our  own 
loved  country.  The populus  JRomaniis  never,  in  point  of 
fact,  embraced,  even  in  the  days  of  Rome's  greatest  free 
dom  and  prosperity,  the  Roman  plebs.  Rome  never  was  a 
Democracy  ;  she  never  attempted  to  make  herself  a  repre- 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  461 

sentative  Democracy  or  Republic.  Rome  was,  from  the 
days  of  the  expiration  of  monarchical  rule,  in  the  time  of 
Tarquinius  Superbus,  up  even  to  the  time  of  Manns'  sev 
enth  consulship,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  selfish  and 
tyrannical  aristocracy,  beneath  whose  scepters  the  great 
mass  of  the  Roman  populace  groaned  in  continual  servi 
tude.  The  city  of  Rome  was  virtually  the  whole  Repub 
lic,  if  such  a  word  as  Republic  might  be  in  a  certain  loose 
sense  applied  to  it,  A  violent  war  of  almost  ever-raging 
factions  constituted  the  almost  unchanging  history  of  the 
Roman  people  for  nearly  three  centuries.  The  aristocratic 
or  patrician  rulers  of  Rome  were  selfish,  unfeeling,  and 
oppressive.  The  populace  were  little  more  than  a  wretched, 
undisciplined,  unlettered,  and  unteachable  mob.  Outside 
of  Rome  there  was  naught  besides  a  disgusting,  squalid, 
brutifying  servitude.  What  wonder,  then,  that  Marius 
was  able  to  force  himself  upon  a  seventh  consulship  by 
the  aid  of  only  a  few  thousand  wretched  military  ruffians  ? 
Who  can  feel  surprised  to  learn  that  Sylla,  by  a  similar 
armed  force,  and  hardly  more  numerous,  was  able  to  es 
tablish  himself  almost  unresisted  in  the  office  of  perpetual 
dictator,  amidst  scenes  of  sweeping  confiscation  and  butch 
ery  that  sicken  and  nauseate  the  soul  ?  Cajsar,  Pompey, 
and  Crassus  were  quietly  allowed,  in  the  sight  of  all  Rome, 
to  erect  a  triumviral  despotism  which  for  the  time  domi 
nated  over  all  things,  either  in  Rome  itself  or  in  the  des 
olated  provinces.  When  Cresar  got  read}'  to  pass  the 
Rubicon  the  Roman  Senate  declared  that  there  was  no 
hope  even  for  temporary  tranquillity  and  safety  in  the 
great  city,  except  under  the  power  of  Pompey  as  sole  con 
sul.  Cicero  tells  us  that  no  matter  how  the  great  civil 
war  might  have  terminated  the  same  scenes  of  general 
carnage  and  confiscation  would  inevitably  have  ensued  ; 
and  he  adduced  evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  melancholy 
statement,  drawn  from  the  unblushing  declarations  of  the 

'  O 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

Pompeian  leaders  antecedent  to  the  decisive  Pharsalian 
battle.  The  Roman  people  were  indeed  no  longer  fit  for 
freedom,  if  they  ever  had  been  ;  they  were  capable  neither 
of  appreciating  it,  nor  of  maintaining  it.  He,  indeed, 
must  have  a  strangely  organized  mind  who  imagines  that 
he  can  see  any  points  of  similitude  between  the  Roman 
people  two  thousand  years  ago  and  the  forty  millions 
of  free  American  citizens  who  dwell  in  power  and  pros 
perity  between  the  two  great  oceans  which  bound  this 
continent. 

But  where  are  any  indications  to  be  seen  of  a  design  on 
the  part  of  the  existing  President  of  the  United  States  to 
despoil  his  native  country  of  its  dearly-bought  freedom? 
Where  is  the  large  mercenary  army  which  he  has  assem- 
bed  for  the  execution  of  his  own  fell  enterprise  ?  Where 
has  he  located  a  military  force  large  enough  to  be  wielded 
for  the  carrying  into  effect  of  this  alarming  coup  d'etat/ 
Which  one  of  our  rich  and  populous  cities  is  he  first  to 
occupy  with  his  invading  army  ?  But  let  me  ask,  with 
all  gravity,  when  did  this  much  reviled  public  servant 
seriously  transcend  the  limits  of  his  official  power,  either 
in  war  or  in  peace?  When  did  he  fail  on  any  proper  oc 
casion  to  show  that  he  was  resolved  to  keep  the  military 
subordinate  to  the  civil  power?  When  did  he  play  the 
part  of  tyrant  or  oppressor  toward  any  man  whatever, 
either  in  war  or  peace  ?  On  what  precise  day  in  the  cal 
endar  was  it  that  he  marched  a  military  force  to  the 
American  Capitol,  in  imitation  of  the  noted  examples  of 
a  Cromwell  or  a  Xapoleon  the  First,  and  forcibly  expelled 
the  American  Senators  and  Representatives  of  the  nation 
from  the  seats  of  legislation  ? 

I  did  not  vote  for  General  Grant  in  the  late  Presiden 
tial  election.  I  have  but  a  slight  personal  acquaintance 
with  him.  It  is,  I  think,  quite  probable  that  we  shall 
never  know  each  other  much  better  than  we  now  do.  I 


CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES.  463 

am  as  little  authorized,  therefore,  to  speak  for  him  on  this 
subject  as  any  other  man  now  in  Washington  city.  But 
[  have  lived  a  good  while,  and  I  sometimes  natter  myself 
that  I  have  not  lived  altogether  in  vain.  I  know  aome- 

o 

thing  of  men  and  of  their  probable  motives  of  action.  I 
have  mingled  freely  with  the  public  men  of  my  genera 
tion,  and  have  not,  perhaps,  been  oftener  wrong  in  my 
estimation  of  human  character  than  some  others  of  whom 
I  could  make  mention.  I  have  been  stationed  for  three 
months  past  in  Washington  city,  and  have  been  a  diligent 
observer  of  all  the  "signs  of  the  times  "  here  displayed  to 
view  ;  and  I  now  declare  my  firm  and  rooted  conviction 
that  there  is  not  a  man  to  be  found  upon  the  soil  of 
America  more  averse  to  Csesarism,  as  it  is  called,  than 
the  present  much-denounced  President  of  the  United 
States.  I  am  confident  that  if  he  had  a  thousand 
lives  he  would  freely  risk  them  all  in  defense  of 
our  republican  institutions.  I  am  quite  as  confident, 
too,  that  no  American  patriot  now  living  has  more  respect 
for  the  example  and  character  of  Washington  than  has 
this  eminent  personage.  As  to  running  for  the  Presi 
dency  a  third  time,  I  am  well  satisfied  that  he  has  neither 
said  nor  done  aught  to  justify  a  suspicion  that  he  has  the 
least  wish  to  be  elected  to  the  Presidency  for  an  addi 
tional  term.  This  cry  of  Csesarism  is  not  now  raised  for 
the  first  time.  The  ears  of  the  "  Father  of  his  Country  " 
were  assailed  with  the  same  insulting  sounds,  and  so  were 
those  of  Andrew  Jackson.  But  the  enemies  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  progress  and  the  foes  of  reconstruction  should 
bear  in  mind  that  there  is  no  clause  of  the  Constitution 
forbidding  any  President  running  and  be  ing  elected  for  a 
third  term  ;  that  the  important  and  striking  fact  that  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  inserted  in  that  instrument 
no  prohibitory  clause  as  to  this  matter  is  pretty  conclu. 
sive  proof  that  they  were  of  opinion  that  it  was  at  least 


4fU  CASKET  OF  REMINISCENCES. 

possible  that  an  exigency  might  thereafter  arise  in  which 
it  would  become  needful  that  a  President,  already  twice 
elected,  should  allow  his  name  to  be  used  a  third  time  in 
order  to  defeat  the  advancement  to  power  of  some  man  of 
dangerous  purposes  and  principles;  that  even  the  exam 
ple  of  the  venerated  Washington  can  be  hardly  regarded 
as  more  sacred  than  the  Constitution  itself,  which  he 
several  times  swore  to  support ;  and  that  no  man  who 
properly  estimates  the  character  of  this  great  and  good 
man  can  at  all  doubt  that  he  would  himself  have  run  as 
a  Presidential  candidate  again  had  he  supposed  that  his 
submitting  to  such  a  patriotic  sacrifice  was  necessary  in 
order  to  defeat  the  aspirations  of  some  wily  demagogue 
of  his  own  time,  known  to  be  in  close  alliance  with  the 
Jacobinical  faction  then  reigning  in  France,  and  which 
he  had  himself  seen  so  menacingly  represented  in  the  per 
son  of  the  notorious  Genet. 

If  the  enemies  of  reconstruction  and  the  constitutional 
amendments  wish  not  to  encounter  General  Grant's  here 
tofore  invincible  popularity  in  the  Presidential  field,  com 
mon  prudence  should  teach  them  to -change  their  present 
political  attitude.  Let  them  cease  their  endeavors  to  re 
organize  the  rickety  and  discredited  Democratic  party  for 
the  next  Presidential  contest.  Let  them  openly  and 
frankly  accept  the  results  of  the  war.  Let  them  cease 
that  constant  bickering  about  trifies,  that  ill-natured 
snarling  over  the  ordinary  and  necessary  exercises  of 
power  on  the  part  of  the  Government.  Let  them  make 
a  manly  and  liberal  allowance  for  results  which  no  com 
mingled  wisdom  and  virtue  could  possibly  have  averted. 
Let  them  rise  up  above  the  arts  of  low  decrial  and  cal 
umny.  Let  them  evince  a  proper  regard  for  the  honor  of 
their  country  and  the  dignity  of  free  institutions  as  rep 
resented  by  those  into  whose  hands  the  people  themselves 
have  committed  for  a  short  term  the  symbols  of  official 


CASKET   Of   REMtNiSCEKCES.  466 

power.  Let  them  assume  a  position  with  prompt  and 
manly  frankness  which  will  at  once  extinguish  the  suspi 
cions  which  their  own  indiscreet  conduct  has  engendered 
that  a  secret  alliance  is  now  existing  between  the  open 
supporters  of  secession  in  the  South  and  the  now  reor 
ganizing  Northern  Democracy  for  the  prosecution  of 
another  joint  struggle  for  the  reins  of  Federal  power. 
Let  all  the  opponents  of  the  Administration,  among 
whom  there  are  doubtless  many  honest  and  patri 
otic  men,  for  decency's  sake,  as  well  as  for  reasons 
of  commendable  policy,  discourage  those  who  were 
notoriously  the  most  prominent  instigators  of  the 
late  civil  war  from  taking  a  leading  and  conspicuous  part 
in  upholding  what  they  choose  to  call  the  Conservative 
cause.  But  above  all  things,  let  Jeff  Davis  be  kept  at 
home  for  a  year  or  two  so  that  he  no  more  play  the  part 
of  a  blustering  Goliath,  which  he  is  now  doing,  to  the  re 
gret  of  all  patriotic  men,  and  to  the  alarm  of  some  of  the 
friends  of  the  Union.  While  I  am  now  writing  the  news 
is  confirmed  to  the  friends  of  the  peace  and  tranquillity 
of  the  National  Union  that  this  political  maniac  has  again 
broken  loose  from  his  accustomed  keepers  and  is  moving 
through  the  land  with  all  the  dangerous  fury  of  the 
canine  species  at  this  fearful  period  of  the  year.  That 
voice  which  no  popular  assemblage  east  or  west  of  the 
Cumberland  mountains  in  Tennessee  would  be  pleased  to 
hear  has  been  provoked  to  new  utterances  on  Virginia 
soil,  and  has  been  heard  to  reverberate  among  the  hills 
and  valleys  of  a  region  heretofore  noted  for  its  quietude 
and  decency.  How  majestically  must  this  persecutor  of 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  Joe  Johnston  have  thundered  at 
Montgomery  White  Sulphur  Springs  last  week,  ac 
cording  to  the  account  which  has  reached  us,  while 
he  was  crying  havoc  !  and  letting  loose  the  dogs  of  war 
once  more  upon  a  blood-stained  and  devastated  land, 
30  R 


466  CASKET    OF    ftEMTNISCENCES. 

eructating  his  factious  nonsense  amid  the  torrid  fumes 
of  ill-distilled  whisky  rising  up  thick  and  foggily 
from  scorched  and  blistered  stomachs  and  the 
dark  and  ominous  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke  ascending 
cheerily  from  aristocratic  cigar  and  plebeian  eornhusk 
pipe!  How  murkily  did  he  manage  to  mourn  over  a 
cause  which  he  had  murdered  in  cold  blood !  How  chiv 
alrously  did  he  reassert  his  right  again  to  war  upon  his 
country's  peace  and  happiness  whenever  his  self-love  and 
insatiable  ambition  shall  again  prompt  him  to  put  on 
the  habiliments  of  war!  How  mellifluously  did  he  chant 
the  glories  of  those  "  unreconstructed''  ladies  of  the  South 
upon  whose  influence  he  seems  chiefly  to  rely  for  putting 
in  movement  a  newT  scheme  of  rebellion  !  Well,  really,  if 
this  foolish  game  is  forever  to  be  played  by  simpletons 
and  unappeasable  factionists,  and  if  a  new  war  cry  is  to 
be  raised  upon  the  sacred  soil  of  Virginia,  it  seems  to  be 
high  time  that  the  friends  of  the  Union  and  the  Consti 
tution  should  everywhere  unite  to  put  down  by  one  glo 
rious  and  patriotic  effort  all  who  seek  to  bring  upon  us 
assail)  the  unnameable  horrors  of  a  bloody  civil  war. 

However  serious  may  be  the  misconstruction  to  which 
Mr.  Davis'  present  conduct,  and  that  of  those  with  whom 
he  is  apparently  in  combination,  may  expose  many  of  the 
long-suffering  citizens  of  the  Soutb.  it  is,  nevertheless, 
absolutely  true  that  he  is  at  this  moment  the  representa 
tive  of  no  considerable  class  of  our  Southern  people ;  and 
it  would  therefore  be  alike  cruel  and  unjust  to  hold  others 
responsible  for  his  unseemly  and  incoherent  ravings. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  467 


APPENDIX. 


ARISM. 


There  have  been  so  many  allusions  made  in  the  preeed 
ing  Reminiscences  to  Ccesarism,  that  it  has  been  judged 
proper  to  publish  in  this  form  a  review  of  Napoleon's 
"Caesar,"  which  made  its  first  appearance  about  a  year 
before  the  commencement  of  the  Reminiscences  them 
selves. — H.  S.  F. 

HISTORY     OF    JULIUS     C.^SAR,    BY     LOUIS     NAPOLEON 
BUONAPARTE. 

HENRY    S.    FOOTE. 


Ten  years  have  now  run  their  varied  course  of  good 
and  evil  since  something  like  a  formal  notification  was 
given  to  the  world  that  a  new  Life  of  Julius  Caesar  would 
soon  emanate  from  the  French  Imperial  press  :  this  work 
was  to  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  History — the  ear 
liest  copies  of  which,  adorned  with  all  suitable  emblazon 
ry,  were  to  be  transmitted  to  the  crowned  potentates  of 
earth,  respectively,  after  which  the  untitled  multitudes 
of  all  countries  under  the  sun  would  be  graciously 
allowed  to  read,  to  admire,  and  to  do  fitting  homage  to 
the  lessons  of  genuine  Napoleonic  wisdom  which  were  ex 
pected  to  be  embodied  in  the  volumes  that  were  now  al 
most  ready  to  take  their  place  in  the  select  libraries  of  the 


463  CASKET   Otf   REMINISCENCED. 

learned  and  the  tasteful.  An  announcement  so  unusual 
was  doubtless  productive  of  some  effect  in  certain  quar 
ters,  and  it  is  probable  that  many  individuals,  both  in 
Europe  and  in  America,  felt  more  or  less  of  a  certain 
curiosity  touching  the  contents  of  a  work  whose  advent 
had  been  so  pompously  heralded. 

Caesar  and  his  achievements — his  daring  and  unscru 
pulous  ambition — his  criminal  and  vaulting  aspirations, 
and  his  bloody,  but  deserved  death,  had  constituted  for 
nearly  nineteen  centuries  a  favorite  subject  of  dissertation 
and  comment.  These  matters  had,  indeed,  to  some  extent 
become  of  late  years  a  little  trite  and  unsavory  to  many, 
and  under  ordinary  circumstances  would  not  have  been 
likely  to  provoke  to  a  renewed  discussion  of  them  any 
mind  at  all  original  in  its  cast,  and  capable  of  grappling 
with  a  healthful  and  effective  energy  the  great  questions 
of  every  kind  daily  rising  to  view  in  this  age  of  progress 
and  enlightenment.  Yet  it  can  not  be  justly  denied  that 
there  is  much  in  the  example  of  Caesar  and  his  bloodily 
triumphant  career  as  a  destroyer  of  civii  liberty  to  enkindle 
something  of  a  peculiar  sympathy  in  the  bosom  of  such  as 
distrust  the  capacity  of  man  for  self-government,  and  who 
regard  it  as  in  the  order  of  Providence  to  commission  cer 
tain  persons,  supposed  to  be  embued  with  a  wisdom  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  ordinary  mortals,  to  take  imperial 
charge  of  all  the  concerns  of  municipal  government,  and 
to  guide  and  regulate  the  whole  body  of  the  untaught  and 
unteachable  rabble  of  mankind  for  their  own  happiness 
and  advancement.  It  is  quite  certain  that  no  civil  tyrant 
who  has  yet  figured  upon  the  page  of  history,  since  Caesar 
ceased  to  live,  has  failed  to  select  him  as  his  idolized  ex 
emplar;  and  it  seems  quite  probable  that  in  all  future 
ages  the  Cromwells,  the  Napoleons,  and  the  rest,  will  be 
found,  as  it  has  been  in  the  past,  so  far,  at  least,  as  it  may 
chance  to  be  in  their  power,  to  follow  most  trustingly 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  469 

in  the  footsteps  of  their  grand  prototype,  expecting,  of 
course,  to  shelter  themselves  from  deserved  odium  under 
the  authority  of  one  whom  they  are  themselves  so  much 
interested  in  exalting  beyond  the  reach  of  criticism  or 
censure,  and  in  surrounding  him  with  an  adscititious 
splendor  in  which  they  may  he  understood  as  more  or 
less  participating. 

But  the  Life  of  Julius  Caesar  had  been  already  written 
more  than  once,  and  in  a  manner  altogether  satisfactory, 
by  authors  of  acknowledged  distinction ;  and  all  that 
remained  to  us  of  his  writings  had  undergone  repeated 
translation,  so  that  it  was  not  clearly  seen  what  more  was 
capable  of  being  said  or  written  in  illustration  of  such  vir 
tues  as  he  might  be  supposed  to  have  possessed,  or  in  ex 
position  of  such  crimes  as  he  was  understood  to  have  per 
petrated.  It  could  not  but  be  well  known  to  many,  also, 
that  the  celebrated  Charles  V,  who  took  Cresar  for  his 
model,  had  left  behind  him  a  copy  of  the  famous  Com 
mentaries,  lavishly  bespread  with  many  characteristic 
marginal  notes ;  that  the  Sultan  Soliman,  his  cotemporary, 
had  caused  Europe  to  be  ransacked  for  all  the  copies  of 
the  Commentaries  then  extant,  with  a  view  to  the  careful 
collection  of  them,  and  the  publication  of  a  corrected  copy 
in  the  Turkish  language ;  that  Henry  IV  of  France  had 
himself  given  a  French  version  to  the  two  first  books  of- 
the  Commentaries ;  that  Louis  XIII  had  translated  the 
two  last,  and  that  these  four,  having  been  tacked  together, 
had  undergone  publication  at  the  Louvre  in  1630.  Nor 
had  it  been  yet  forgotten  that  Louis  XIV  had,  with  a 
view  to  giving  evidence  of  his  own  scholarship,  translated 
anew  the  first  book  of  the  Commentaries,  (in  rather  clumsy 
French,  it  must  be  confessed  ;)  that  the  great  Conde,  him 
self  of  royal  extraction,  was  well  known  to  be  a  diligent 
student  of  the  campaigns  recorded  in  the  Commentaries, 
and  had  been  the  special  patron  of  a  new  edition  of  the 


470  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCE?. 

whole  work,  presented  in  a  French  dress  by  Nicholas 
Perrot  d'Ablancourt  ;  that  the  eccentric  Christjna,  Queen 
of  Sweden,  had  sought  immortality  hy  coupling  her  name 
with  that  of  the  renowned  "  yeni,  vidi,  viri"  conqueror  in 
a  singular  treatise  entitled  "  Reflections  on  the  Life  and 
Actions  of  Caesar  ;  "  and,  to  close  this  splendid  catalogue 
of  illustrious  names,  that  the  First  Napoleon,  when  at 
St.  Helena,  had  done  homage  to  the  genius  of  his  acknowl 
edged  prototype  hy  dictating  a  volume,  afterward  pub- 
lished  in  Paris,  under  the  name  of  "Precis  des  guwes  de 


Now,  considering  these  facts  and  others  of  a  kindred 
character,  there  would  seem  really  not  to  have  been  any 
special  literary  necessity  for  the  laborious  preparation  and 
industrious  promulgation  of  the  two  cumbrous  volumes 
which  we  now  hold  under  critical  examination  —  to  be 
followed,  it  may  be,  hereafter,  by  another  brace  of  them 
of  a  similar  complexion  and  character. 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  and  we  say  it  with  much 
deliberation,  too,  that  the  first  of  these  boasted  volumes 
is,  in  a  mere  historic  point  of  view,  little  more  than  a  loose 
and  indigested  compendium  of  facts  connected  with  the 
rise  and  progress  of  the  Roman  State  and  people,  the  most 
important  of  which  are  to  be  found  set  forth  in  works  far 
less  voluminous,  and  in  a  style  far  more  attractive  ;  while 
the  second  volume  is  occupied  almost  entirely  with  a  very 
free  and  oftentimes  a  highly  inaccurate  translation  of  cer 
tain  books  of  the  Commentaries  ;  except  that  the  imperial 
author  has  condescended,  here  and  there,  to  favor  us  with 
his  own  opinion  upon  certain  disputed  facts,  with  the 
reasons  upon  which  these  opinions  purport  to  be  bottomed. 
most  of  which  opinions  are  manifestly  overstrained  ami 
ludicrously  fanciful. 

If  there  be  any  who  are  at  a  loss  to  understand  what 
precise  objects  the  celebrated  ex-Emperor  of  the  French  had 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  471 

in  view  in  the  publication  of  this  work,  they  will  see  these 
very  distinctly  presented  in  the  singular  preface  with 
which  it  is  accompanied ;  an  extract  or  two  from  which 
will  be  here  brought  forward : 

"  When  extraordinary  acts  attest  an  eminent  genius, 
what  is  more  contrary  to  good  sense  than  to  ascribe  to 
him  all  the  passions  and  sentiments  of  mediocrity  ?  What 
more  erroneous  than  not  to  recognize  the  pre-eminence  of 
those  privileged  beings  who  appear  in  history  from  time  to 
time,  like  luminous  beacons,  dissipating  the  darkness  of 
their  epoch,  and  throwing  light  upon  the  future?  To 
deny  this  pre-eminence  would,  indeed,  be  to  insult  human 
ity,  by  believing  it  capable  of  submitting,  long  and  vol 
untarily,  to  a  domination  which  did  not  rest  on  true 
greatness  and  incontestible  utility.  Let  us  be  logical 
and  we  shall  be  just." 

It  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  see  that  the  sort  of  logic  here 
so  conirnendingly  alluded  to  is  nothing  but  the  odious  jus 
divinum  in  a  somewhat  new  and  beguiling  form  ;  such 
logic  as  may  be  conveniently  applied  to  all  the  systems 
of  despotism  heretofore  existing  on  earth ;  for  but  few  of 
these  can  be  mentioned  in  which  time  had  not  lent  its 
hollow  and  unmeaning  sanction  to  usurped  power,  or  in 
which  oft-repeated  but  unsuccessful  attempts  to  overthrow 
a  hated  tyranny  had  not  taught  long-oppressed  and  soul- 
torpified  millions  the  policy  of  apparent  acquiescence. 

Let  us  return  to  this  bold  and  out-spoken  preface:  "But 
by  what  sign,"  continues  the  author,  "  are  we  to  recognize 
a  man's  greatness  ?  By  the  empire  of  his  ideas,  when  his 
principles  and  his  system  triumph  in  spite  of  defeat.  Is  it 
not,  in  fact,  the  peculiarity  of  genius  to  survive  destruc 
tion  and  to  extend  its  empire  over  future  generations? 
Cfesar  disappeared,  and  his  influence  predominates  even 
more  than  during  his  life." 

Who  can,  after  reading  the  above  extracts,  doubt  that 


472  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

the  prime  object  of  the  imperial  author  was  to  aid,  so  far 
as  it  might  be  in  his  power  to  do  so,  the  diffusion  and  eter- 
nization  of  what  he  understood  to  be  the  principles  and  sys 
tem  of  Caesar  V  With  Caesar's  name  is  embodied  indissolubly 
the  idea  of  usurpation  and  the  destruction  of  republican 
freedom.  Caesar  was  the  most  adroit  and  successful  dem 
agogue  or  adulator  of  the  people  that  the  world  has  known. 
Caesar  believed  implicitly  that  he  was  born  to  rule  over 
the  credulqus  and  confiding  multitude,  and  regarded  it  as 
justifiable,  on  his  part,  to  employ  any  means  whatever 
which  might  seem  most  likely  to  attain  the  gratification 
of  his  ambition.  Caesar  did  succeed  in  the  establishment 
of  an  irresponsible  despotism.  When  he  was  taken  off  by 
assassination,  he  had  thoroughly  concentrated  all  civil 
and  military  power  in  his  own  hands.  There  was  no 
longer  freedom  of  speech,  or  freedom  of  action  in  any  part 
of  the  earth  held  under  Roman  authority.  It  seems  to  us 
to  be  about  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  understand 
what  was  Caesar's  "  system,"  and  what  were  his  "princi 
ples  ;"  and  it  would  be  quite  as  easy  to  define  the  "  sys 
tems  "  and  "  principles  "  of  those  who  have  attempted  to 
tread  the  pathway,  first  blazed  out  by  him,  to  imperial 
domination  at  the  expense  of  popular  liberty!! 

In  further  illustration  of  this  matter,  we  cite  the  follow 
ing  additional  extract :  "  The  preceding  remarks  suffi 
ciently  explain  the  aim.  I  have  in  view  in  writing  this 
history.  This  aim  is  to  prove  that  when  Providence  raises 
up  such  men  as  C;esar,  Charlemagne,  and  Napoleon  it  is 
to  trace  out  to  peoples  the  path  they  ought  to  follow  ;  to  stamp 
with  the  seal  of  their  genius  a  new  era ;  and  to  accom 
plish,  in  a  few  years,  the  labor  of  centuries.  Happy  the 
people  who  comprehend  and  follow  them !  woe  to  those 
who  misunderstand  them !  They  do  as  the  Jews  did, 
they  crucify  their  Messiah  ;  they  are  blind  and  culpable  ; 
blind,  for  they  do  not  see  the  impotence  of  their  efforts  to 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  473 

suspend  the  definitive  triumph  of  good  ;  culpable,  for  they 
only  retard  progress  by  impeding  its  prompt  and  fruitful 
application." 

He  continues  :  "  In  fact,  neither  the  murder  of  Csesar, 
nor  the  captivity  of  St.  Helena,  has  been  able  to  destroy 
two  popular  causes  overthrown  by  a  league  which  dis 
guised  itself  under  the  mask  of  liberty.  Brutus,  by  de. 
stroying  Csesar,  plunged  Rome  into  the  horrors  of  civil 
war ;  he  did  not  prevent  the  reign  of  Augustus,  but  he 
rendered  possible  those  of  Nero  and  Caligula.  The  ostra 
cism  of  Napoleon  by  confederated  Europe  has  been  no 
more  successful  in  preventing  the  empire  from  being  resus 
citated;  and,  nevertheless,  how  far  are  we  from  the  great 
questions  solved,  the  passions  calmed,  and  the  legitimate 
satisfactions  given  to  people  by  the  first  empire." 

We  would,  indeed,  like  very  much  to  know  to  what 
peoples  the  legitimate  satisfactions  spoken  of  as  having 
been  enjoyed  under  the  boasted  First  Empire  were  really 
imparted;  and  we  are  curious  to  know,  also,  the  precise  na 
ture  of  these  same  satisfactions,  and  whether  similar 
satisfactions  of  the  same  legitimate  character  accrued  to 
any  people  on  earth  from  the  establishment  of  that  mon 
strous  system  of  tyranny  called  the  Second  Empire,  and 
which  was  recently  brought  to  an  end  so  disastrously  and 
bloodily  as  the  natural  result  of  a  most  ill-advised  and 
unpardonable  war.  We  opine  that  the  melancholy  exile 
of  Chiselhurst,  though  even  not  yet  effectually  cured  of 
the  insane  and  selfish  ambition  which  ha«  cursed  his 
whole  life,  if  he  ever  now  ventures  to  glance  over  this 
over-wrought  and  ostentatious  preface  of  his,  must  blush 
and  blush  deeply,  too,  over  the  evidences  therein  embodied 
of  his  own  ineffable  vanity  and  shallowness.* 

*  This  article  was  written  and  published  about  ten  days  before  Louis 
Napoleon's  death. 


474  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

Perhaps,  taking  all  the  attendant  circumstances  into 
consideration,  we  should  not  he  altogether  justified  in 
avowing  any  strong  feeling  of  surprise  that  the  French 
Emperor  should  have  felt  it  to  he  a  part  of  his  special  mis 
sion,  into  this  breathing  and  hustling  world  to  write  just 
such  a  hook  as  this  in  vindication  of  the  cause  of-usurpation. 
He  was,  at  the  time  that  these  volumes  made  their  appear 
ance  at  the  very  zenith  of  his  ill-gotten  power.  Four 
hundred  thousand  men  in  arms — a  much  larger  number 
than  Julius  Caesar  himself  had  ever  commanded — acknowl 
edged  him  as  their  military  chief.  He  was  living  in  the 
palaces  of  an  ancient  and  once  powerful  dynasty,  and 
thousands  of  slavish,  gorgeously  arrayed  courtiers  poured 
every  moment  into  his  ears  the  streams  of  an  insincere 
and  dishonoring  adulation.  All  Europe  stood  agaze  at 
the  scene  of  grandeur  which  surrounded  him,  and'some 
who  ought  to  have  known  better  allowed  themselves  to  be 
recognized  as  the  admirers  of  his  wisdom,  and  the  approv 
ers  of  his  policy.  Like  Caesar,  and  the  First  Napoleon,  he 
had  grown  opulent  by  the  pillage  of  the  public  treasury  of 
a  generous  and  confiding  people,  and  from  the  same  source 
he  had  enriched  the  whole  body  of  his  kinsmen  and  depen 
dants.  He  had  been  engaged  in  several  great  wars,  and, 
thanks  to  the  valor  of  his  soldiers  and  the  ability  of  his 
generals,  he  had  come  forth  from  each  of  them  triumphant. 
He  was  the  acknowledged  champion  and  protector  of  the 
venerated  head  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church.  He  had 
added  new  dignity  to  the  throne  which  he  had  usurped, 
by  inter-marriage  with  a  lady  of  the  most  splendid  beauty 
arid  of  the  rarest  graces  and  accomplishments.  A  son  had 
been  born  to  him  of  this  marriage,  who  was  already  the 
recognized  inheritor  of  an  imperial  greatness,  which  shal 
low  and  unthinking  multitudes  were  everywhere  predict 
ing  would  equal  the  domination  of  the  Roman  Caesars  in 
duration,  and  be  far  more  glorious.  He  had  by  arts  of 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  475 

various  kinds  thus  far  managed  to  keep  the  passions  of  a 
mercurial  and  easily-excited  people  in  a  state  of  compar 
ative  quietude  and  repose.  He  had  made  more  than  one 
literary  experiment  before,  ere  he  became  the  incumbent 
of  a  throne;  and  productions  of  his  pen,  once  laughed  at 
for  their  folly,  the  sagacious  critics  of  the  world  had  at 
last  found  out  to  be  written  with  more  than  Ciceronian 
elegance,  and  replete  with  practical  wisdom. 

The  territorial  expanse  of  the  old  world  had  been  found 
too  narrow  to  supply  a  suitable  arena  for  the  display  of 
his  enterprising  and  all-conquering  genius ;  and  he  had 
sought  increase  of  personal  glory,  and  a  new  field  for  his 
ideas  of  imperial  domination  beyond  the  rolling  ocean. 
He  had  just  dispatched  a  large  army  to  unhappy  Mexico, 
and  demanded  the  erection  there  of  a  new  imperial  throne, 
upon  which  was  soon  to  be  seated,  under  his  own  special 
tutelage  and  control,  a  promising  scion  of  the  time-hon 
ored  Hapsburg  family.  It  has  been  whispered  in  certain 
circles  that  he  had  already  contemplated  the  speedy  exten 
sion  of  his  boasted  "system  and  principles  "  to  the  natal 
soil  of  Washington.  How  true  this  may  be  we  shall  at 
present  hazard  no  conjecture.  If  he  had  established 
twenty  regal  governments  in  North  America  he  would, 
in  doing  so,  have  been  only  following  the  example  of 
Julius  Oresar  whilst  he  sojourned  in  Gaul,  and  that  of  the 
First  Napoleon  whilst  at  the  head  of  his  conquering 
armies. 

Under  the  circumstances  just  specified,  what  more 
natural  occurrence  could  have  taken  place  than  the  sending 
forth  from  the  French  imperial  press,  in  1862,  of  such  a 
book  as  that  which  we  are  noticing,  as  a  sort  of  avant- 
roarie.r  of  the  momentous  world-revolution  which  it  was 
expected  to  usher  in  ? 

Whilst  contemplating  the  execution  of  this  herculean 
task,  it  was  doubtless  regarded  as  a  fact  of  no  inauspicious 


47ti  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

augury  that  but  few  of  the  occupants  of  thrones  had, 
either  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  been  known  to  attempt 
authorship  upon  a  grand  scale  ;  for  the  chances  of  acquir 
ing  renown  in  any  field  of  human  labor  must  of  necessity 
bear  some  proportion  to  the  fewness  of  those  who  come 
forward  as  competitors  for  the  coveted  prize.  Besides, 
it  is  undoubtedly  true,  as  has  been  abundantly  proved  in 
the  present  instance,  that  a  writer  of  history,  or  of  any 
other  literary  work,  if  he  be  a  royal  personage,  at  least  so 
long  as  he  shall  be  able  to  hold  in  his  grasp  the  reins  of 
authority,  will  be  far  less  exposed  to  the  shafts  of  criticism 
than  would  any  private  individual.  If  we  have  not  been 
misinformed  on  this  subject,  his  Imperial  Majesty,  before 
he  allowed  these  precious  historic  volumes  to  see  the  light 
in  France,  put  in  action  protective  machinery  of  a  very 
effective  character  to  save  his  own  well-earned  fame  from 
unjust  and  illiberal  attack.  We  recollect  to  have  heard 
of  at  least  one  enterprising  French  pamphleteer  who  had 
to  fiy  with  much  precipitation  beyond  the  Gallic  confines 
for  having  referred  to  this  same  book  and  its  imperial 
author  in  language  deemed  irreverent,  and  had  this  exper 
iment  upon  the  patience  of  Majesty  been  once  or  twice 
repeated  there  is  no  knowing  what  a  fearful  combustion 
might  have  been  produced  among  the  literary  coteries  of 
the  French  capital.  When  the  lordly  inhabitant  of  a 
regal  palace  condescends  to  enlighten  the  world  upon 
grave  questions  of  state,  it  is  but  proper  perhaps  that  he 
should  be  listened  to  with  more  than  ordinary  patience. 
Such  at  least  has  been  the  way  of  mankind  in  all  past 
ages.  The  famed  tyrant  of  Syracuse  is  known  to  have 
been  much  praised  in  the  literary  circles  of  Greece  until 
his  noted  falling  out  with  Plato,  the  then  chief  of  the 
world  of  letters ;  Frederic  the  Great,  of  Prussia,  was  recog 
nized  as  an  elegant  writer  of  French,  and  a  profound  phil 
osopher  into  the  bargain,  until  lie  threw  into  prison  his 


CASKE.T  OF  REMINISCENCES.  477 

once  admired  friend,  Voltaire ;  and  the  adulators  who 
thronged  the  golden  palace  of  Nero,  (some  of  whom  were 
not  altogether  undistinguished  in  the  ranks  of  literature,) 
pronounced  hirn  a  better  writer  of  poetry  than  either  Vir 
gil  or  Horace,  and  more  polished  and  vigorous  as  a  com 
poser  of  prose  than  Livy  or  Tully ;  and  even  the  pure- 
minded  and  erudite  Quintilian,  whilst  he  saw  in  the  hands 
of  Domitian  the  uplifted  scourge  of  imperial  authority, 
deemed  it  politic  to  say  of  this  monster  that  he  would  cer 
tainly  have  been  the  greatest  of  poets  (maximum  poetarum^) 
but  that  the  Gods  had  found  it  necessary  to  burden  him 
with  the  cares  of  state. 

In  regard  to  the  particular  style  in  which  the  history 
of  Julius  Csesar  is  written,  there  is  not  a  great  deal  either 
to  commend  or  censure.  It  is  more  a  compilation  than  a 
history  ;  and  there  is  but  little  which  can  justly  lay  claim 
to  originality,  either  in  phrase  or  sentiment.  It  does  not 
at  all  resemble  the  famous  commentaries,  either  in  simple 
dignity  of  expression  or  in  easy  and  graceful  flow  of  dic 
tion.  It  is  as  an  artistic  production  decidedly  below 
mediocrity  ;  its  style  is  exceedingly  rugged  and  cumbrous  ; 
it  is  remarkable  for  neither  vigor,  sprightliness,  nor  per 
spicuity  ;  and  it  exhibits  a  continual  straining  after  effect 
which  is  positively  disgusting.  It  is  ostentatious  without 
impressiveness  ;  magniloquent  and  high-sounding  without 
the  least  approach  to  true  grandeur,  either  of  sentiment 
or  phraseology. 

But  we  shall  not  dwell  upon  this  head  ;  there  are  mat 
ters  of  much  higher  moment  which  remain  to  be  discussed. 
For,  be  it  known,  that  we  are  far  from  thinking  that  the 
world  should  feel  any  great  surprise  at  our  imperial  biog 
rapher's  deficiencies  as  a  writer.  It  would  have  been  sim 
ply  absurd  for  anyone  to  expect  him  to  equal  Thucydides, 
Livy,  or  Tacitus  as  a  delineator  of  grave,  historic  events, 
or  to  place  himself  upon  a  footing  with  the  best  descrip- 


478  CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES. 

tive  authors  that  France  or  England  has  produced  in 
modern  times.  His  early  education  is  understood  not  by 
any  means  to  have  been  such  as  was  best  calculated  to 
give  development  and  expansion  to  the  higher  intellectual 
faculties,  and  for  many  years  anterior  to  the  fall  of  Louis 
Phillippe  he  is  well  known  to  have  led  a  loose  and  ram 
bling  life,  eminently  unpropitious  to  sound  moral  culture 
or  healthful  mental  training. 

Our  objections  to  the  ex-Emperor  of  the  French,  as  a 
writer  of  history,  are  of  a  far  graver  and  deeper  character 
than  has  yet  been  more  than  intimated.  He  seems  to  us, 
in  these  same  volumes  of  his,  to  have  attempted  the  per 
version  of  truth  in  many  important  instances,  and  to  have 
assailed  with  unsparing  virulence  many  of  the  noblest 
patriots  and  sagest  statesmen  of  whom  antiquity  can 
boast,  for  the  attainment  of  purposes  merely  selfish  in 
their  character.  He  has  selected  Julius  Cjesar  as  the  sub 
ject  of  exorbitant  and  unmixed  commendation,  and  in 
vested  him  with  attributes  to  which  he  never  had  a  just 
claim,  hoping  that  he  would  be  able  in  this  way  to  con 
ceal  the  hideousness  of  his  unparalleled  usurpation,  and 
rescue  from  just  odium  also  certain  others  who,  in  imita 
tion  of  his  example,  have  attained  supreme  power  by  per 
fidy,  by  corruption,  and  by  bloodshed  ;  calculating  doubt 
less  that  by  pursuing  this  course,  he  would  have  it  in  his 
power  to  beguile  the  mass  of  mankind  into  a  voluntary 
and  disgraceful  abandonment  of  the  most  sacred  rights  of 
freedom. 

We  do  not  propose  here  to  enter  into  a  copious  citation 
of  particulars  in  order  to  establish  the  charges  which  \ve 
have  preferred.  We  have  not  sufficient  space,  nor  is  it  at 
all  necessary  that  we  should  do  so. 

That  Julius  Cavsar  was  one  of  the  most  intellectual  meu 
that  the  world  has  yet  known  we  have  never  fora  moment 
doubted.  Even  Cicero  himself  says  of  him,  in  one  of  his 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  479 

famous  Philippics,  when  applauding  Brutus  and  his  brother 
conspirators  for  having  put  him  to  death  :  "  In  that  man 
were  combined  genius,  method,  memory,  literature,  pru 
dence,  deliberation,  and  industry.  He  had  performed 
exploits  in  war  which,  though  calamitous  for  the  Repub 
lic,  were  nevertheless  mighty  deeds.  Having  for  many 
years  aimed  at  being  a  king,  he  had,  with  great  labor  and 
much  personal  danger,  accomplished  what  he  intended. 
He  had  conciliated  the  ignorant  multitude  by  presents, 
by  monuments,  by  largesses  of  food,  and  by  banquets  ;  he 
had  bound  his  own  party  to  him  by  rewards,  his  adversa 
ries  by  the  appearances  of  clemency.  Why  need  I  say  so 
much  on  such  a  subject  ?  He  had  already  brought  a  free 
city,  partly  by  fear,  partly  by  suffering,  into  a  habit  of  servi 
tude^ 

We  need  not  refer  to  the  celebrated  declaration  of  Quin- 
tilian,  that  "  Csesar  talked  with  the  same  vigor  that  he 
fought."  Nor  is  it  important  that  the  celebrated  parallel 
drawn  by  Sallust  between  Caesar  and  Cato  should  be  more 
than  incidentally  referred  to  here.  We  freely  admit  that 
nature  had  lavishly  bestowed  the  choicest  of  her  gifts 
upon  the  extraordinary  man  of  whom  we  are  speaking. 
Nor  are  we  permitted  to  doubt  that  he  possessed  all  the 
literary  and  scientific  accomplishments  known  to  the  age 
in  which  he  flourished. 

As  a  commander  of  armies,  it  is  probable  that  he  has 
never  been  equaled.  As  an  adroit  and  successful  party 
leader,  he  has  certainly  never  been  surpassed.  No  one 
was  ever  more  profoundly  skilled  in  the  art  of  managing 
men.  But  other  questions  remain  to  be  solved.  Was  he 
a  patriot  in  the  truest  and  fullest  sense  of  the  word  ?  Did 
he  prefer  his  country's  peace  and  welfare  to  his  own  per 
sonal  advancement?  Was  he  a  sincere  believer  in  the 
capacity  of  man  for  self-government  ?  Was  he  a  true 
respecter  of  popular  rights  and  of  republican  institutions '( 


480  OASKEf   Of 

Was  lie  a  man  of  probity  and  uprightness  ?  Did  he  pos 
sess  in  an  eminent  degree  the  domestic  and  social  virtues? 
Did  he  prefer  the  society  of  virtuous  and  patriotic  men  to 
that  of  the  licentious  and  the  profligate?  Did  he  seek 
civil  promotion  only  by  fair  and  patriotic  and  honorable 
expedients?  Is  it  fortunate  for  the  Roman  government 
and  people  that  Crcsar  was  born,  and  flourished,  and  ac 
quired  imperishable  personal  renown  ?  Has  his  example 
as  a  public  man  and  as  a  private  citizen  been,  on  the 
whole,  advantageous  to  the  human  race  in  general,  or  the 
reverse  ?  We  feel  confident  that  to  none  of  these  queries 
can  a  favorable  response  be  given  without  seriously  vio 
lating  the  truth  of  history. 

In  support  of  this  view  of  the  matter,  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  go  beyond  those  details  embodied  in  the  vol 
umes  of  his  latest  biographer;  from  whose  pages  we  learn 
that  Julius  Caesar  was  born  at  Rome,  in  the  six  hundred 
and  fifty-fourth  year  of  the  Republic,  and  that  he  was  of 
an  ancient  and  distinguished  family.  "  On  one  side,"  says 
the  History,  "he  claimed  to  be  descended  from  Anchises 
and  Venus;  on  the  other,  he  was  the  nephew  of  the  fa 
mous  Caius  Marius,  the  husband  of  his  aunt  Julia." 
When  Caesar  was  thirty-two  years  of  age  he  delivered  a 
funeral  oration  in  honor  of  his  aunt,  and  in  that  oration 
formally  proclaimed  this  important  genealogical  fact,  in 
hearing  of  a  vast  concourse  of  the  Roman  people.  This 
circumstance,  as  unimportant  as  it  may  seem  to  many, 
indicated  clearly  enough  his  own  conviction  that  he  was 
himself  born  for  empire,  and  his  determination  to  seek 
power,  as  Marius  had  done  before  him,  by  doing  homage 
to  the  feelings  of  the  populace.  His  education  was  as  well 
attended  to  as  was  then  possible  at  Rome,  and  before  he 
had  attained  to  the  years  of  manhood  he  enjoyed  all  the 
facilities  possible  to  be  supplied  for  acquiring  a  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  language  and  literature.  "  He  united,"  says 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  481 

the  History,  "  to  goodness  of  heart  a  high  intelligence, 
to  an  invincible  courage  an  enthralling  eloquence,  a  won 
derful  memory,  and  unbounded  generosity;  finally,  he 
possessed  one  rare  quality — calmness  under  anger." 
"His  tall  stature,  his  rounded  and  well  proportioned  limbs, 
stamped  his  person  with  a  grace  that  distinguished  him 
from  all  others.  He  had  black  eyes,  a  piercing  look,  a  pale 
complexion,  a  straight  and  high  nose.  His  mouth  small, 
and  regular,  but  with  rather  thick  lips,  gave  a  kindly  ex 
pression  to  the  lower  part  of  his  face,  whilst  his  breadth 
of  brow  betokened  the  development  of  the  intellectual 
faculties.  His  face  was  full,  at  least  in  his  youth  ;  for  in 
his  busts,  doubtless  made  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  his 
features  are  thinner  and  bear  marks  of  fatigue.  He  had  a 
sonorous  and  penetrating  voice,  a  noble  gesture,  and  an 
air  of  dignity  reigned  over  all  his  person/'  We  learn 
further  from  the  History,  that  he  "  paid  special  attention 
to  his  person,  carefully  shaved,  or  plucked  out  his  beard, 
and  artistically  brought  his  hair  forward  to  the  front  of 
his  head,  which,  in  more  advanced  age,  served  to  conceal 
his  bald  forehead.  He  was  reproached  with  the  affecta 
tion  of  scratching  his  head  with  one  finger  only,  so  that 
he  should  not  disarrange  his  hair.  His  toilet  was  refined  ; 
his  toga  was  generally  ornamented  with  a  laticlavium, 
fringed  down  to  the  hands,  and  fastened  by  a  girdle  care 
lessly  tied  about  his  loins  ;  a  costume  which  distinguished 
the  elegant  and  effeminate  youths  of  the  period/' 

"He  had  a  taste  for  pictures,  statues,  and  jewels  ;  and 
in  memory  of  his  origin  always  wore  on  his  linger  a  ring 
on  which  \vas  engraved  the  figure  of  an  armed  Venus/' 

"Such,"  continues  the  imperial  biographer,  "was  Csesar 
at  the  age  of  eighteen,  when  Sylla  seized  the  dictatorship. 
Already  he  attracted  all  eyes  at  Rome  by  his  name,  his 
intellect,  his  affable  manners,  which  pleased  men,  and  per 
haps  some  women,  too/' 
31  R 


48:2  CASKET   OF   REMINISCENCES. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  to  divine  how  the  royal  bioprapher 
of  Caesar  should  have  felt  it  necessary  so  ostentatiously  to 
parade  some  of  these  curious  trivialities  be.fore  the  public 
eye,  unless  the  reason  of  his  doing  so  is  to  be  found  in  the 
following  extract  from  another  page  of  his  work: 
satisfied  with  conciliating  the  good  will  of  the  people,  C 
sar  won  for  himself  the  favor  of  the  noblest  dames  of 
Rome ;  and  notwithstanding  his  notorious  passion  for 
women,  we  can  not  but  discover  a  political  aim  in  his 
choice  of  niittrexses,  since  all  held  by  different  ties  to  men 
who  were  then  playing,  or  were  destined  to  play,  an  im 
portant  part.  He  had  important  relations  with  Tertulla, 
the  wife  of  Crassus  ,  with  Mucia,  wife  of  Pompey  ;  with 
Lollia,  wife  of  Aulus  Gabinius,  who  was  consul  in  696  ; 
with  Postumia,  wife  of  Servius  Sulspicius,  who  was  raised 
to  the  consulship  in  703,  and  persuaded  to  join  Caesar's 
party  by  her  influence;  but  the  woman  he  preferred  was 
Servilia,  sister  of  Cato,  and  mother  of  Brutus,  to  whom, 
during  his  consulship,  he  gave  a  pearl  valued  at  six  mil 
lions  of  sesterces  (1,140,000  frances,or  45,600  pounds.) 
This  connection  throws  an  air  of  improbability  (thinks 
our  grave  and  sagacious  historian,)  over  the  reports  then 
in  circulation  that  Servilia  favored  an  intrigue  between 
him  and  her  daughter  Tertia.  Was  it  by  the  intermedia 
tion  of  Tertulla  that  Crassus  was  reconciled  to  Cassar?" 

These  are  truly  extraordinary  details  to  be  presented, 
without  a  syllable  of  censure,  by  the  imperial  head  of  a 
family,  who  boasts  himself  to  be  a  true  devotee  to  the 
Christian  faith,  and  from  whom  the  world  had  a  right  to 
to  demand,  in  an  especial  manner,  an  example  of  social  de 
cency,  if  not  of  elevated  morality.  If  in  connection  with 
such  facts  as  those  just  mentioned  we  take  into  consid 
eration  Cesar's  famous  dalliance  in  Alexandria  with 
Cleopatra;  his  known  intimacy  with  Mark  Antony,  the 
most  profligate  of  mankind;  with  Clodius,  on  account  of 


CASKET    OP   REMINISCENCES.  483 

whose  suspected  intimacy  with  his  own  wife,  Pompeia, 
he  had  driven  her  from  his  house ;  and  even  with  the  in 
famous  Catiline  himself,  a  fact  which  his  present  august 
historian  does  not  attempt  to  deny,  we  shall  be  prepared 
to  place  a  proper  estimate  upon  certain  other  remarkable 
particulars  in  Caesar's  public  career  which  are  now  to  be 
runningly  alluded  to. 

In  680  or  681  Ca^ar  was  nominated  by  his  friends  to 
the  office  of  pontiff,  because,  as  is  alleged,  they  thought 
it  expedient  that  he  should  be  "clothed  with  a  sacred 
character."  He  seems  to  have  taken  no  part  in  the  servile 
war  then  raging.  He  was  about  the  same  period  made 
military  tribune,  which  gave  him  command  of  a  thou 
sand  soldiers.  In  676  he  accompanied  Aristius  Vetus  to 
Ulterior  Spain  in  the  capacity  of  questor.  There  he 
gained  no  marked  distinction  ;  but  it  is  recorded  of  him 
that  whilst  occupied  with  the  duties  of  the  questorship 
he  went  one  day  to  the  famous  temple  of  Hercules,  at 
Grades,  as  Hannibal  and  Scipio  had  done  before  him.  "At 
the  sight  of  the  statue  of  Alexander  he  deplored  with  a 
sigh  that  he  had  done  nothing  at  the  age  when  this  great 
man  had  conquered  the  world.''  On  his  return  to  Rome 
he  sustained,  in  conjunction  with  Cicero,  the  famous  Ma- 
nillian  law  which  enabled  I3ompey,  then  in  the  zenith  of 
his  popularity,  to  supplant  Lucullus  in  the  managment 
of  the  Mithridatic  war.  He  had  already  conceived  the 
project,  afterward  so  adroitly  executed,  of  winning  the 
confidence  and  frindship  of  Pompey  with  a  view  to  the 
advancement  of  his  own  fortune,  in  a  few  years  to  be  real 
ized  in  the  formation  of  the  first  Triumvirate.  In  687  he 
was  chosen  curator  of  the  Appian  way.  Two  3rears  sub 
sequent  he  was  made  curule  aidile.  In  this  last  office  he  in 
curred  vast  expenses,  and  became  overwhelmingly  in 
volved  in  debt.  It  was  at  this-  precise  period  that  he 
ventured  to  test  the  state  of  popular  feeling  in  Rome  in 


484  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

regard  to  his  uncle  Marius,  having  evidently  made  up 
his  mind  to  run  the  same  daring  and  sanguinary  career 
should  it  become  necessary  to  the  gratification  of  his  ambi 
tion.  He  restored  the  trophies  of  Mar i us  which  had  been 
overturned  by  Sylla,  and  in  the  night  time  had  them  placed 
in  the  Capitol.  In  690  Caesar,  acting  in  the  capacity  of 
Jadex  questionnis,  sat  upon  the  trial  of  Catiline,  charged 
with  the  murder  of  M.  Marius  Gratidianus,  and  as-quitted 
him.  In  691  Cft?sar  openly  supported  Catiline  for  the 
consulship  against  Cicero  and  others  of  the  noblest  pa 
triots  in  Rome.  In  explanation  of  his  censurable  conduct 
on  this  occasion  his  present  imperial  laudator  says :  "  In  a 
spirit  of  opposition  he  supported  all  that  could  hurt 
his  enemies  and  favor  a  change  of  system"  How  could 
Catiline  himself  have  done  worse?  Within  the  next 
year  or  two  ho  became  the  zealous  supporter  of  an  Agra 
rian  law,  and  of  other  measures  looking  to  the  benefit  of 
the  provinces;  and  was  evidently  increasing  in  popular 
ity  every  day.  In  692  the  Catiline  conspirators  were 
brought  to  trial  before  the  Senate,  condemned  and  exe 
cuted,  Cavsar  opposing  the  infliction  of  capital  punishment 
upon  them,  and  making  a  bold  and  energetic  speech  on 
the  occasion.  Suspected  by  the  Roman  Knights,  who  sur 
rounded  the  Capitol  at  the  time  in  arms,  his  life  was  saved 
alone  by  the  magnanimous  interposition  of  Cicero.  At 
this  stage  of  his  history  our  imperial  author  interposes  a 
well-known  anecdote,  in  these  words:  "A  singular  inci 
dent  happened,  in  the  midst  of  these  debates,  to  show  to 
what  point  Caesar  had  awakened  the  people's  suspicions. 
At  the  most  animated  moment  of  the  discussion  a  letter 
was  brought  to  him.  He  read  it  with  eagerness.  Cato 
and  other  senators,  supposing  it  to  be  a  message  from  one 
of  the  conspirators,  insisted  upon  its  being  read  to  the 
Senate.  Caesar  handed  the  letter  to  Cato,  who  was  seated 
near  him.  The  latter  saw  it  was  a  love-letter  from  hie 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  485 

sister  Servilia,  and  threw  it  back  indignantly,  crying  out, 
4  There!  keep  it  drunkard  !' 

In  692  Caesar  was  Pretor-urbanus,  and  during  his  occu 
pancy  of  that  office  became  more  and  more  closely  allied 
to  Pompey.  Scenes  of  great  turbulence  now  ensued,  in 
which  Caesar  and  Cato,  as  leaders  of  opposing  parties, 
once  or  twice  had  serious  personal  collisions.  From  698 
to  695  Caesar  was  pro-praetor  to  Spain.  When  about  set 
ting  out  for  his  province,  his  creditors,  whose  claims 
amounted  altogether  to  £200,000,  attempted  to  have  him 
arrested,  and  it  seems  that  he  would  have  been  compelled 
to  submit  to  this  humiliation  but  for  the  kindness  of 
Crassus,  who,  on  being  applied  to,  advanced  to  Caesar 
enough  to  discharge  all  his  pressing  liabilities. 

Such  being  the  desperate  condition  of  his  fortunes,  the 
following  anecdote  will  not  at  all  surprise  us  :  On  Caesar's 
journey  to  Spain  lie  halted  for  a  few  hours  at  a  wretched 
village  amid  the  Alps,  when  some  of  his  officers  having 
inquired  of  him  whether  he  thought  that  even  in  this 
remote  and  sequestered  place  there  were  solicitations  and 
rivalries  for  office,  he  answered:  "I  would  rather  be  the 
first  among  these  savages  than  second  in  Rome."  Truly 
the  grand  Caesaro-Napoleonic  "  fixed  idea  "  of  imperial 
sovereignty  was  now  rapidly  cropping  out! 

During  his  sojourn  in  Spain  Caesar  is  stated  in  the  His 
tory  to  have  "amassed  a  rich  booty,  which  enabled  him 
to  reward  his  soldiers  and  to  pay  considerable  sums  into 
the  treasury  without  being  accused  of  peculation  or  of 
arbitrary  acts."  Behold  him  now  on  the  way  to  opulence 
and  power  !  He  returns  to  Rome,  stands  for  the  consul 
ship  and  is  elected.  This  result,  as  our  historian  confesses, 
was  mainly  owing  to  the  secret  compact  then  set  on  foot 
by  Caesar,  Pompey,  and  Crassus,  in  accordance  with  the 
terms  of  which  the  Republic  was  to  be  in  future  ruled 
by  their  triple  counsels,  "  The  alliance,"  says  the  History, 


486  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

"which  these  three  persons  ratified  by  their  oaths  re 
mained  long  a  seciet ;  and  it  was  only  during  Caesar's  con- 
finish  ip  that  it  became  a  matter  of  public  notoriety,  from 
the  unanimity  they  displayed  in  all  their  public  resolu 
tions.''  A  more  profligate  and  unprincipled  combination 
than  this  is  not  known  in  history ;  and  yet  our  historian 
has  not  a  word  of  censure  to  bestow  on  it.  He  confesses  that 
this  conspiracy  was  chiefly  brought  about  by  the  manage 
ment  of  Caesar,  of  whom  he  says  :  "  In  the  midst  of  con 
flicting  opinions  and  interests,  the  presence  of  a  man  of 
steady  purpose  and  deeply  rooted  convictions,  and  illustrious 
through  recent  victories,  was  without  any  doubt  an 
event.  He  did  not  require  long  to  form  his  estimate  of 
the  situation,  and  as  he  could  not  yet  unite  the  masses 
for  the  realization  of  a  grand  idea,  he  thought  to  unite 
the  chiefs  by  a  common  interest."  Verily,  this  is  an  exceed 
ingly  frank  declaration ! 

A  highly  significant  and  illustrative  fact  is  mentioned 
in  the  History  in  connection  with  the  consular  election 
which  has  been  just  spoken  of.  "Among  the  candidates 
was  Cains  Lucceius.  Csesar  was  desirous  of  attaching  to 
his  interest  this  person,  who  was  distinguished  alike  by 
his  writings  and  character,  and  who  possessed  of  vast 
wealth  had  promised  to  make  abundant  use  of  it,  for 
their  common  profit*  in  order  to  command  the  majority  of 
votes  in  the  centuries/'  The  party  opposed  to  Caesar, 
embracing  the  greater  part  of  the  Senate,  deeply  distrust 
ing  Caesar,  and  painfully  apprehending  the  speedy  over 
throw  of  liberty,  should  Caesar  not  only  succeed  in  being 
elected  himself  but  also  secure  the  choice  of  a  colleague 
sure  to  be  subservient  to  all  his  designs,  though  despairing 
of  defeating  the  election  of  Cresar  himself,  were  able  by 
a  great  and  energetic  effort  to  give  to  Caesar  Bibulus  for 
a  colleague,  who,  it  was  known,  would  do  all  he  could  to 
save  the  Republic  from  present  ruin  ;  and  for  thus  post- 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  487 

poning  for  a  few  years  the  realization  of  the  grand  Im 
perialistic  Idea  are  soundly  berated  by  our  historian. 

Before  he  set  out  as  pro-consul  to  the  new  theater  which 
had  been  with  some  reluctance  assigned  him  he  took  care 
to  make  all  safe  in  his  rear.  At  his  instance,  his  brother 
consented  to  allow  L.  Piso,  the  father-in-law  of  Caesar,  to 
be  elected  to  the  consulship,  with  A.  G-abinius,  the  de 
voted  partisan  of  Pompey.  "  They  were,  in  fact,  desig 
nated  consuls  on  the  18th  of  October,  in  spite  of  the  op 
position  of  the  Senate,  and  at  the  time  of  the  accusation 
of  Cato  against  Gabinius,  Caesar,"  says  the  History,  "  found 
himself  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  invested  with  the  imperium, 
and,  according  to  Cicero's  letters,  at  the  head  "of  numer 
ous  troops,  composed  apparently  of  veteran  volunteers. 
He  even  remained  there  more  than  two  months,  in  order 
to  watch  that  his  departure  should  not  become  the  signal 
for  the  overthrow  of  his  work." 

Again,  says  the  History,  "  Caesar  had  skillfully  taken 
precautions  that  his  influence  should  be  felt  at  Rome  dur 
ing  his  absence  as  much  as  the  instability  of  the  magis 
tracy  would  permit.  By  the  aid  of  his  daughter  Julia, 
whose  charms  and  mental  accomplishments  captivated  her 
husband,  Caesar  retained  his  influence  over  Pompey.  By 
his  favors  to  the  son  of  Crassus,  a  young  man  of  great 
merit,  who  was  appointed  his  lieutenant,  he  assured  him 
self  of  bis  father.  Cicero  is  removed,  (by  the  efforts  of 
Caesar's  friend  Clodius,)  but  Caesar  will  soon  consent  to 
his  return,  and  will  conciliate  him  again  by  taking  into 
his  favor  his  brother  Quintus.  There  remains  the  opposi 
tion  of  Cato.  Clodius  undertakes  to  remove  him  under 
the  pretense  of  an  honorable  mission.  Finally  all  the  men 
of  importance  who  had  any  chance  of  obtaining  employ 
ment  are  gained  to  the  cause  of  Caesar  ;  some  even  engage 
themselves  to  him  in  writing.  He  can  thus  proceed  to 
his  province.  Destiny  is  about  to  open  a  new  path  ;  immor- 


488  CASKET    OF    RKMTNFSOENOES. 

tal  glory  awaits  him  beyond   the    Alps,  and   this   glory 
reflected  upon  Rome  will  change  the  face  of  the  world." 

And  so,  indeed,  it  was.  Every  successful  campaign  of 
Caesar  beyond  the  Alps  strengthened  him  prodigiously  at 
Rome.  Military  glory,  that  bane  of  all  republics,  soon 
made  a  single  renowned  chief  too  strong  for  his  country's 
liberties.  What  Cromwell  was  long  afterward  in  Eng 
land,  what  Napoleon  the  First  was  in  France  at  a  still 
later  period,  Caesar  was  soon  to  become  in  Rome.  When 
the  dangers  which  menaced  the  Roman  government  and 
people  began  to  be  clearly  descried  it  was  too  late  to  pro 
vide  against  them.  Caesar,  instigated  by  Mark  Antony 
and  Curio,  at  last  passed  the  Hubicon,  and  Roman  freedom 
was  forever  lost ! 

Nothing  could  be  possibly  more  unprofitable  than 
would  prove  on  our  part  any  attempt  to  follow  our  impe 
rial  historian  into  the  examination  which  he  has  thought 
proper  to  institute  between  the  rival  claims  of  Poinpey 
and  Caesar  to  control  the  fate  of  the  republic,  or  to  find 
out  how  far  Caesar  may  have  been  supplied  with  grounds 
of  complaint,  more  or  less  plausible,  against  those  who 
were  struggling  to  prevent  his  election  to  the  consulship — 
so  long  as  he  should  have  an  army  under  his  command 
ready,  at  any  moment,  to  place  him  in  a  position  alto 
gether  beyond  civil  responsibility  for  any  unauthorized 
acts  he  might  perform.  It  may  be,  as  urged  in  his  behalf, 
that  Caesar  had  some  grounds  of  complaint  against  cer 
tain  public  men  in  Rome,  who  were  inimical  to  him  and 
his  advancement.  It  may  be  that  the  language  of  dis*  rust 
and  apprehension  used  by  the  consul  Marcellus  and  others 
was  of  a  nature  to  irritate  his  sensibilities  and  mortify 
his  self-love.  It  may  even  be  true  that  had  he  disbanded 
his  army,  as  he  had  been  ordered  to  do,  he  would  have 
been  subjected  to  trial  for  many  of  his  unjustifiable  acts 
of  oppression  and  tyranny  in  Gaul.  Rut  his  obvious  dutv 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  489 

as  a  patriotic  citizen  was  to  submit  promptly  and  deco 
rously  to  the  orders  of  the  Roman  government  and  peo 
ple,  and  when  he  refused  to  do  so,  that  instant  he  became 
a  great  public  criminal;  and  when  he  marched  an  army 
in  hostile  array  upon  Roman  soil  for  the  purpose  of  put 
ting  down  by  force  the  existing  government,  and  establish 
ing  in  its  stead  an  Tmperial  Despotism,  he  assumed  an 
attitude  which  no  sound-judging  and  just-minded  man 
will  ever  think  of  upholding.  The  silly  excuse  set  up  in 
behalf  of  Caesar  by  his  latest  and  least  reliable  biographer, 
that  he  was  "  a  man  of  fixed  ideas,"  and  that  he  was  only 
the  minister  of  destiny  in  giving  to  these  a  grand  realiza 
tion,  is  altogether  too  absurd  to  deserve  formal  refutation. 
We  are  quite  willing  to  cite  in  this  place,  and  without 
special  comment  thereupon,  the  very  words  employed  by 
the  illustrious  biographer  of  Caesar  himself,  in  justification 
of  this  part  of  his  conduct.  Here  they  are  : 

"The  moment  for  action  had  arrived,  Ctesar  was  re 
duced  to  the  alternative  of  maintaining  himself  at  the  head 
of  his  army,  in  spite  of  the  Senate,  or  surrendering  him 
self  to  his  enemies,  who  would  have  reserved  for  him  the 
fate  of  the  accomplices  of  Catiline  who  had  been  con 
demned  to  death,  if  lie  were  not,  like  the  Gracchi  Saturn- 
inns,  and  so  many  others,  killed  in  a  popular  tumult. 
Here  the  question  naturally  offers  itself,  Ought  not 
Caesar,  who  had  so  often  faced  death  on  the  battle-field, 
have  o-one  to  Rome  to  face  it  under  another  form,  and  to 
have  renounced  his  command,  rather  than  engage  in  a 
struggle  which  must  throw  the  Republic  into  all  the  hor 
rors  of  civil  war  ?  Yes,  if  by  his  abnegation  he  could  save 
Rome  from  anarchy,  corruption,  and  tyranny.  No,  if 
his  abnegation  would  endanger  what  he  had  most  at  heart, 
the  regeneration  of  the  Republic.  Caesar,  like  men  of  his 
temper,  cared  little  for  life,  and  still  less  for  power  for  the 
sake  of  power,  but  as  the  chief  of  the  popular  party,  he 


100  TASKKT    OF    REMINISOKNCKS. 

felt  a  great  cause  rise  behind  him,  it  urged  him  forward, 
and  obliged  him  to  conquer  in.  spite  of  legality,  the  impre 
cations  of  his  adversaries,  and  the  uncertain  judgment  of 
posterity.  Roman  society,  in  a  state  of  dissolution,^/:^/ 
for  a  master  ;  oppressed  Italy,  for  a  representative  of  its 
rights  ;  the  world,  ho  wed  under  a  yoke,  for  a  tfnvior. 
Ought  he  by  deserting  his  mission  disappoint  so  many 
legitimate  hopes,  so  many  noble  aspirations?" 

The  truth  is  that  the  course  pursued  by  Caesar  and  his 
comrades  in  iniquity,  after  Pompey  and  his  ill-organized 
army  had  tied  from  Brundusium  to  Greece,  leaves  not  a 
shadow  of  doubt  upon  the  motives  and  purposes  of  those 
who  had  now  initiated  that  worst  of  all  evils  that  can 
assail  humanity — civil  //•<//•/  For,  returning  to  Rome,  be 
broke  into  the  public  treasury  and  took  out  therefrom  all 
the  money  of  which  he  stood  in  need  ;  declared  himself 
perpetual  Dictator;  and,  after  placing  in  the  highest  offi 
cial  positions  some  of  the  most  notoriously  corrupt  and 
dissolute  men  to  be  found  in  Rome,  he  proceeded  to  Spain, 
where  he  prosecuted  a  fierce  and  sanguinary  war  with  the 
Republic  ;  and  then,  going  into  Greece,  he  encountered 
in  arms  another  body  of  Roman  soldiers,  organized  also 
under  the  authority  of  the  Republic,  with  which  he  knew 
to  be  associated,  (using  the  language  of  Cicero,)  "  the  con 
suls,  and  with  these  Cneius  Pompei us,  the  light  and  glory 
of  the  Roman  empire  and  people,  all  the  men  of  consular 
rank  whose  health  would  allow  them  to  share  in  the  toils 
of  war,  the  praetors  and  all  men  of  praetorian  rank,  and 
the  tribunes  and  the  greater  part  of  the  Senate,  all  the 
flower  of  the  youth  of  the  city  ;  "  and,  after  the  fatal  bat 
tle  of  Pharsalia  had  been  fought,  proceeding  to  Africa,  in 
pursuit  of  Pornpey,  he  dispatched  the  infamous  Mark 
Antony  to  Italy,  who  there  ravaged  the  whole  land  and 
committed  such  atrocities  of  every  kind  as  have  perhaps 
never  been  equaled  in  any  other  civilized  country  under 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  491 

the  sun.  Nor  is  this  all,  for  when  Cresar,  after  a  long  ab 
sence,  at  last  returned  to  Rome,  so  far  was  he  from  hold 
ing  Mark  Antony  responsible  for  all  his  abominable  mis 
deeds,  that  he  again  took  him  to  his  bosom  as  his  most 
favored  friend  and  counselor,  and  even  raised  him  to  the 
consulship  as  his  own  official  colleague. 

It  is  to  us  truly  astonishing;  that  in  an  aa'e  so  enliffht- 

i/O  O  O 

ened  as  the  present  one  any  man  should  have  the 
effrontery  to  justify  Julius  Cresar  in  the  perpetration  of 
all  these  enormities,  and  that  he  should  even  go  so  far  as 
to  urge  his  example  upon  mankind  as  entitled  to  their 
respect  and  imitation. 

There  is  one  other  topic  to  which  we  propose  to  give  a 
brief  examination  It  is  urged  by  the  author  of  the  new 
History  that  Caesar  is  entitled  to  especial  admiration  by 
reason  of  his  admitted  clemewy,  compared  with  other  mil 
itary  personages  who  rnitrbt  be  mentioned.  In  this  mat- 

«/      J.  O  O 

ter  he  is  only  repeating  the  language  of  Sallust,  who 
though  an  able  and  instructive  writer,  is  well  known  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  corrupt  and  profligate  men 
then  residing  in  Rome  ;  who  had  been  even  expelled  from 
the  Senate  on  account  of  grave  offenses  against  the  pub 
lic  morals  committed  by  him  ;  and  who  owed  his  restora 
tion  to  the  membership  of  that  body,  which  he  had  for 
feited,  to  the  kindness  of  Csesar,  whom  he  had  joined  on 
the  road  from  Arminium  to  lower  Italy,  when  the  scheme 
of  invasion  was  already  in  actual  progress.  Whether  this 
asserted  clemency  of  Cfesar  was  only  seeming^  and  not 
real,  as  is  declared  by  Cicero  and  others,  may  be  decided 
by  a  consideration  of  the  following  well-attested  facts: 

In  his  celebrated  campaigns  in  Gaul,  Germany,  and 
Britain — most  of  which  were  begun  and  prosecuted  with 
out  any  formal  authorization  from  Rome,  and  in  the 
progress  of  which  he  exercised  powers  such  as  did  not 
legitimately  appertain  to  his  station — especially  in  the 


402  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

making  and  unmaking  kings  at.  pleasure  ;  he  did  undoubt 
ed!  v  cause  more  blood  to  be  ruthlessly  shed  and  terrible 
Bufferings  to  be  undergone  by  the  vanquished  than  had 
ever  before  dishonored  the  Roman  eagles.  We  have  space 
only  for  the  presentation  of  a  few  prominent  facts. 

1.  After  the  last  decisive  battle  with  the  Helvetians, 
he  ordered  6,000  valiant  soldiers,  called   Berbegeni  on  ac 
count  of  their  having  attempted  simply  to  avoid,  by  sep 
arate  flight,  the  disastrous  fate  of  the  great  body  of  their 
countrymen,  either  to  be  put  to  death  or  sold  as  slaves. 

2.  The  Veneti,  a  maritime  people,    located    upon  the 
Northern  coast  of  Gaul,  and   who  are   reported  to  have 
carried  on  an  active  and  profitable  commerce  with  Britain, 
whose   sole   fault,  as  alleged   in  the  Commentaries,  con 
sisted  in   the  detaining  of  several  Roman  deputies  sent 
into  their  country  by  Cjesar  for  supplies  of  corn,  (which 
act  of  detention  had  only  been  resorted   to  in  order  to 
compel  Gflesar  to  send  back  their  own  hostages,  demanded 
of  them  as  they  conceived  without  any  just  authority,) 
were  subjected   to   all   the  horrors  of  an   unsparing  war, 
both  upon  the  land  and  upon  the  water.      When  at  last 
crushed  by  superior  force,  in  a  battle  which  was  begun  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  continued  until  sunset, 
the  Veneti  having  lost  all  their  youth,  all  their  principal 
citizens,  and  all  their  fleet,  were  forced  to  surrender  at 
discretion.     Here   was  a   noble    field  for  the   display   of 
moderation  and   magnanimity.     Caesar's  own  Comment 
aries  confess  the  fact  that  in  this  state  of  things  the  con 
queror  caused  the  whole  Venetan  senate  to  be  put  to  death, 
and  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  to  be  sold  for  slaves. 

3.  A  battle    was  fought  by   Cresar  with   two  German 
tribes,  known  as  the  Teucteri  and  the  Usipetes,  who  were 
attacked  by  the  Roman  forces  when  they  had  no  right  to 
expect  anything  of  the  kind    to  occur,  their  chiefs,  who 
had  visited  Gesar's  camp  as  negotiators  for  peace,  having 


BASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  493 

been  forcibly  detained  by  him.  In  the  conflict  which  en 
sued,  the  Germans  having  been  completely  surprised  were 
thrown  into  utter  confusion  ;  in  the  midst  of  which, 
Caesar,  observing  that  the  women  and  children  who  at 
tended  upon  the  camp  of  the  enemy  were  flying  in  every 
direction  to  a  place  of  safety,  ordered  them  to  be  indis 
criminately  massacred  by  the  Roman  soldiers.  Our  his 
torian,  so  far  from  censuring  the  cruel  and  unmanly  con 
duct  of  C^sar  on  this  occasion,  finds  serious  fault  with  the 
noble  Oato  for  formally  proposing  in  the  Roman  Senate 
thar.  Caesar,  for  this  atrocious  act  of  mingled  perfidy  and 
violence,  should  be  at  once  surrendered  up  to  the  German 
people  to  atone  for  his  outrageous  violation  of  the  laws  of 
civilized  warfare.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these 
sickening  details;  but  we  forbear.  We  are  content  to 
close  this  "rim  narrative  of  atrocities  with  a  single  addi- 

G  S 

tional  instance. 

4.  In  the  year  701,  while  Caesar  was  south  of  the  Alps, 
levying  additional  forces,  and  superintending  political 
intrigues  looking  to  his  own  future  advancement  to  su 
preme  power,  a  general  uprising  of  the  eight  millions  of 
the  noble  Gallic  nation  against  the  tyrannical  domination 
of  Rome  took  place,  under  the  auspices  of  an  accomplished 
and  high-sprited  young  chief,  himself  of  royal  extraction, 
by  name  Vercingetorix.  After  many  scenes  of  bloody 
and  exhausting  strife,  in  which  deeds  of  prowess  were 
performed  on  either  side  as  honorable  as  any  which  have 
ever  adorned  the  annals  of  war,  the  superior  generalship 
of  Caesar  and  the  persevering  energy  of  the  Roman  soldiery 
prevail,  and  the  Gallic  States  and  people  are  no  longer 
willing  to  prosecute  the  war  for  national  independence 
and  freedom.  The  magnanimous  conduct  of  Vercingetorix 
at  this  melancholy  crisis  is  worthy  of  all  praise.  He  con 
vokes  a  council  of  his  countrymen.  He  declares  to  this 
council  that  he  has  not  undertaken  this  bloody  and  terri- 


4^4  OASKET   <>F    REMINISCENCES. 

ble  war  u  out  of  personal  interest,  but  for  the  achievement 
of  the  liberty  of  all."  ••  True,"  he  continues,  "  we  must 
yield  to  fate.  I  place  myself  at  the  discretion  of  my 
fellow-citizens,  and  will  allow  myself,  in  order  to  appease 
the  Romans,  to  be  delivered  to  the  enemy,  dead  or  alive.*'' 

A  deputation  bearing  this  proposition  is  sent  at  once  to 
Cuesar,  who  requires  that  the  arms  and  the  chiefs  be  de 
livered  to  him.  lie  places  himself  in  front  of  his  camp, 
inside  of  his  in  trench  men  ts  ;  the  chiefs  are  brought  ;  the 
arms  are  laid  down,  and  Vercingetorix  surrenders  to  the 
conqueror.  "This  valiant  defender  of  Gaul,"  says  the 
History,  "  arrives  on  horseback,  clad  in  his  finest  arms, 
makes  the  circuit  of  Caesar's  tribunal,  dismounts,  and  lay 
ing  down  his  sword  and  his  military  ensigns,  exclaims  : 
"  Tkou  hast  vanquished  a  brave  man,  thou,  the  bravest  of  all! ' 

Before  we  notice  the  fate  of  this  splendid  young  Gallic 
hero,  we  copy  from  the  following  from  Commentaries  : 
"The  prisoners  were  distributed  by  head,  to  each  soldier, 
by  way  of  booty,  except  the  20,000  who  belong  to  the 
,J£dui  and  Averni,  and  whom  Cresar  restored  in  the  hope 
of  bringing  them  back  to  his  cause/' 

As  to  Caesar's  treatment  of  Vercingetorix,  let  Dio  Cas- 
sius  explain:  "'After  this  defeat,  Vercingetorix,  who  had 
neither  been  taken  or  wounded,  might  have  fled,  but  hop 
ing  that  the  friendship  which  had  formerly  bound  him  to 
Caesar  would  procure  his  pardon  he  repaired  to  the  pro 
consul,  without  having  sent  a  herald  to  ask  for  peace,  and 
appeared  suddenly  in  his  presence,  at  the  moment  he  was 
sitting  on  his  tribunal.  His  appearance  inspired  some 
fear,  for  he  was  tall  of  stature  and  had  a  very  imposing 
aspect  under  arms.  There  was  a  deep  silence  ;  the  Gaulish 
chief  fell  at  Caesars  knees,  and  implored  him  by  pressing 
his  hands,  without  uttering  a  word.  This  scene  excited 
the  pity  of  the  bystanders,  by  the  remembrance  of  Ver- 
cingetorix's  former  prosperity  compared  with  his  present 


CASKET    OF   REMINISCENCES.  495 

misfortune.  Caesar,  on  the  contrary,  upbraided  him  with 
the  recollections  on  which  he  had  hoped  for  his  safety. 
He  compared  with  his  recent  struggle  the  friendship  of 
which  he  reminded  him,  and  by  that  means  pointed  out 
more  vividly  the  odiousness  of  his  conduct.  And  thus, 
far  from  being  touched  with  his  misfortunes  at  that  mo 
ment,  he  threw  him  into  fetters,  and  afterward  ordered 
him  to  be  put  to  death,  after  having  exhibited  him  in  his 
triumph." 

There  is  not  in  all  history,  as  we  believe,  anv  instance  of 
greater  cruelty  and  meanness.  We  know  of  nothing  which 
can  be  regarded  as  even  approximating  to  it  in  enormity, 
save  the  atrocious  treatment  of  Montezurna  and  Guata- 
mozin  by  that  monstrous  chief  of  bandits,  Fernando 
Cortes  himself;  and  yet,  in  remarking  upon  this  disgusting 
transaction,  our  complaisant  writer  of  history  only  says: 
"By  acting  thus  Caesar  believed  that  he  was  obeying  state 
policy  and  the  cruel  customs  of  the  time.  It  is  to  be  re 
gretted,  for  his  glory,  that  he  did  not  use  toward  Vercin- 
getorix,  the  illustrious  Gaulish  chief,  the  same  clemency 
which,  during  the  civil  war,  he  showed  toward  the  van 
quished  who  were  his  fellow-citizens.'' 

Now  we  must  confess,  that  after  studying  with  dili 
gence  the  history  of  Caesar's  conduct  toward  his  fellow-citi 
zens  during  the  civil  war,  we  have  met  with  no  remark 
able  evidences  of  the  much-boasted  clemency.  He  cer 
tainly  did  not  put  to  death  all  the  Roman  soldiers  taken 
prisoners  in  battle;  and  on  the  contrary  manifested,  on  all 
occasions  an  eager  desire  to  enlist  them  under  his  own 
banner.  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  rudely  expel  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Italy  who  had  originally  opposed  his  at 
tempted  usurpation  beyond  the  confines  of  that  beautiful 
peninsula;  for  had  he  done  so  he  would  have  left  him 
self  but  few  subjects  to  be  reigned  over.  It  is  also  true 
that  he  extended  a  sort  of  insulting  forgiveness  to  such 


496  CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES. 

eminent  Roman  statesmen  as  he  supposed  might  be  trans 
formed  into  supporters  of  his  authority.  But  there  were, 
even  at  the  period  of  his  decease,  many  nobly  patriotic 
citizens  of  Rome  who  were  forbidden  to  show  their  faces 
in  the  Eternal  City.  A  very  large  majority  of  those  who 
had  openly  allied  themselves  with  Pompey  and  the  Senate, 
in  the  great  struggle  for  the  preservation  of  liberty,  were 
cruelly  stripped  of  all  the  property  they  possessed  by  the 
ruffianly  ministers  of  confiscation;  and  even  the  family  of 
the  illustrious  commander  were  by  no  means  excepted 
from  the  common  fate;  in  proof  of  which  the  high  testi 
mony  of  Cicero  is  adducible  in  these  heart-rending  words  : 
"Caesar came  back  from  Alexandria,  fortunate, as  he  seemed 
at  least  to  think  himself;  but,  in  my  opinion,  no  man  can 
be  fortunate  who  is  not  fortunate  to  the  Republic.  The 
spear*  was  set  up  in  front  of  Jupiter  Stator,  and  the 
property  of  Cncius  I'ompeius  Magnus,  (ah  !  miserable  me! 
for  even  now  that  my  tears  have  ceased  to  flow,  my  grief 
remains  deeply  implanted  in  my  heart;) — the  property,  1 
say,  of  Cneius  I'ompeius,  the.  great,  was  submitted  to  the 
pitiless  auctioneer.  On  that  occasion  the  State  forgot  its 
slavery,  and  groaned  aloud;  and  although  men's  minds 
were  enslaved,  as  everything  was  kept  under  by  fear,  still 
the  groans  of  the  Roman  people  were  free." 

Is  further  evidence  desired  of  Caesar's  tyrannous  and  un 
feeling  heart?  Let  a  single  well-known  scene  in  Roman 
history  suffice  for  this  purpose.  A  few  months  anterior 
to  the  infliction  of  more  than  Roman  justice  upon  this  chief 
of  culprits,  repeated  and  earnest  applications  were  being 
made  in  favor  of  exiled  patriots  whose  presence  in  Rome 
was  deemed  unsafe  for  the  upholders  of  despotism.  The 
friends  of  Marcelius  were  particularly  urgent  in  claiming 


*Tlie  custom  of  erecting  a  spear  wherever  an  auction  was    held 
well  known. 


CASKET    OF    REMINISCENCES.  497 

for  him  the  privilege  of  returning  to  his  native  hind, 
which  he  had  so  long  adorned,  in  former  years,  by  his 
virtues  not  less  than  his  eloquence.  At  last  the  whole 
body  of  the  Senate  fell  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  Dictator, 
and  earnestly  implored  his  pardon,  not  without  the  copi 
ous  shedding  of  tears. 

Thus  appealed  to,  the  iron  will  of  the  vain-glorious 
tyrant  was  constrained,  for  very  shame,  to  unbend  itself. 
On  this  occasion  it  wras  that  Cicero  delivered  his  cele 
brated  oration,  "Pro  MarceMo" in  which  he  returned  formal 
and  elaborate  thanks  to  Cjvsar  for  doino-  what,  if  he  had 
not  done,  he  would  have  forfeited  the  respect  of  all  living 
men.  ^Tever  would  such  a  speech  have  been  delivered  if 
clemency  had  been  a  virtue  of  familiar  practice  with  him 
to  whom  this  special  offer  of  gratitude  was  made! 

A  single  additional  remark  will  conclude  our  notice  of 
the  History  of  Julius  Ca>sar  bv  the'  ex-Emperor  of  the 
French.  It  is  asserted  in  this  work  that  at  the  time  of 
Ca?sar's  demise  he  was  getting  ready  to  res  :ore  the  ancient 
free  institutions  of  Rome.  ]MVver  was  a  more  unfounded 
statement  hazarded.  If  is  true,  on  the  contrary,  that  at 
this  very  moment,  not  content  with  far  more  than  ordi 
nary  kingly  authority,  he  was  contemplating  his  own 
formal  investment  with  the  regal  diadem. 

Had  Brutus  and  his  noble  associates  not  altogether  de 
spaired  of  the  resurrection  of  Roman  liberty,  save  by  such 
means  as  they,  with  the  fullest  deliberation,  adopted, 
never  would  they  have  imbrued  their  hands  in  the  blood 
of  the  tyrant  !  It  were  gross  injustice  to  all  these  illus 
trious  men  to  think  otherwise;  men  of  whom  Cicero  so 
nobly  spoke  in  the  Koman  Senate  afterward,  and  employ 
ing  these  memorable  words  concerning  them,  which  will 
live  as  long  as  the  Roman  literature  shall  be  known  on 
earth  :  u  If  those  deliverers  of  ours  have  taken  themselves 
away  out  of  our  sio-ht,  still  they  have  left  behind  them 


CASK  ET    OF    R  K M  I N I  SO  E NO ES. 


the  example  of  their  conduct.  They  have  done  what  no 
one  else  has  done.  Brutus  pursued  Tarquinius  with  war  ; 
who  was  a  king  when  it  was  lawful  for  a  king  to  exist 
in  Home.  Spurius  Cassius,  Sptmus  Melius,  and  Marcus 
Manlius  were  all  slain  hecause  they  were  suspected  of 
aiming  at  regal  power.  7TAw  are  the  first  men  who  have 
ever  ventured  to  attack,  sword  in  hand,  a  man  who  was 
not  aiming  at  regal  power,  hut  actwdbj  reigning,  and  their 
action  is  not  only  of  itself  a  glorious  and  god-like  exploit, 
hut  it  is  also  one  put  forth  for  our  imitation  ;  especially 
as  by  it  they  have  acquired  such  glory  as  appears  hardlv 
to  he  hounded  by  heaven  itself.  For  although  in  the 
very  consciousness  of  a  glorious  action  there  is  a  certain 
reward,  still  i  do  not  consider  immortality  of  glorv  a 
thing  to  he  despised  by  one  who  is  himself  mortal." 


14  DAY  USE 

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